Happy Life.........................

After celebrating Christmas 2021 at home in Austin, we planned a 3 days trip to Dallas. Radhika's college class mate and her family had a house. We planned to stay there. We left on 26th afternoon and after an almost 5 hour 193 mile journey that was slowed down by witnessing a couple of accidents along the freeway , we reached Javeed and Amreen's home in Frisco around 7PM. Frisco is around 30 min north of Dallas and is an upcoming township with lot of new construction. Their's was a beautiful 2010 Highland home house on a cul-de-sac. Javeed was my school senior and his sister was my classmate in school. We got to know this the last time they came home to our apartment in Austin a year ago.  They have 2 beautiful kids - a 5 year old Yusuf and a 4 year old Jannah. Malootty got along with them pretty well. they started playing right away. I was so impressed with their hospitality. It was so heartwarming and pleasant.They went extra lengths to make sure we were comfortable, che

After a lot of time at home, first with covid induced  quarantine, and later with a new and young Ambaadi, we were badly in need to get out of house and enjoy a vacation. This thanksgiving, we planned for Garner state park. A little research on instagram promised fall colors and scenic landscape.We were all excited. Booked an Airbnb in  Leakey, close to the park. We originally planned for 3 families with 6 adults and 6 kids, but one family had to drop out as they got sick. We proceeded on the trip with 2 families - Anil, Mary, Ken, Joanna + Us 4 We started on Wednesday afternoon from Austin after a good lunch at Chick-Fil-A. After about a 4 hours drive, we reached our destination. It was a big house  with almost an acre of combined yard in the front and back. It was dark by the time we reached the place. So after we settled into our rooms, Anil and I went out to get some dinner. As it was thanksgiving eve, most of the places were closed early and the only place open was a pizza place.