Weekend bits - Vol 4

The weekend was fun packed and flew just like that! Hem (BIL) had come to visit us for the weekend. I was excited to cook many different dishes for him coz he follows up with my food blog :)
Friday night, We went to the airport to pick up Hem. We had made a trip to the 99 ranch market on thursday and bought fresh fish and shrimp. For dinner, I had prepared Jeera pulao, Bhindi masala, egg curry, fish fry and goan shrimp curry. It was my first try to cook fish and prawns without any help. Was surprised that it turned out great and they liked it! Hem had brought Moms homemade lemon syrup. That will keep us going for the summer. After loads of chatting we went to bed late at 2 am.

Weekend breakfasts are usually special for us, now that Hem was here, it was even more. We had sweet and savory crepes, aebleskivers, fruits and fresh juice for breakfast in the patio. Showed off my veggie garden to Hem :P We played some badminton and biked around for a while. Prepared Thai noodles for lunch and did a family skype chat. We headed to TJMax and shopped around for gifts. After grabbing my favorite ice cream from ColdStone, we headed home for a fun night with our friend Maddy. I made a south Indian dinner for everybody. With a lil help from Hem,  I prepared Kothu parotta, idly-sambar and buttermilk for dinner and watched the movie IP Man.
On Sunday, we drove to LA, to the walk of fame. I bought a new purple ipad sleeve. We dropped Hem at the airport and had dinner in Artesia and drove back home. 

Weekend bits - Vol 3

Happy Monday folks! Hope you had a great weekend! VJ and I dint do much outdoors this weekend, so it was a nice and relaxing one more at home.
Friday evening, we drove to the Del Mar beach to watch the sunset. A short hike will take you to a cliff from where you can see a beautiful sunset. I've always enjoyed watching sunsets in San Diego and this is one of the best spots to take some brilliant pictures. On our way back home, we stopped at ColdStone for my favorite ice cream.

View from the cliff

Sunset

Appy appy :)

My click of the sunset

Down the trail

To start off Saturday, I made crepes for breakfast and had fun time in our little patio.

VJ ready to jump into the yummy crepes ;)

Did some laundry and made the guest room ready for my bro-in-law visiting us next weekend. Bought this cute birthday candle for VJ…btw August is almost here, our birthday month…lots of shopping and surprises coming our way :)

Cute candle with embossed painted cupcakes!

Dined at Passage to India and had this yummy Paneer sizzler for dinner :)
Sunday was a day in the garden. We started off with our summer edible garden and sowed the seeds. We assembled the raised garden kit we bought in Costco and used the hybrid seeds Dad gave us in Tanjore. Looking forward for some Indian veggies in a few weeks!

My raised garden bed

Flowers in our patio

In the evening, VJ took me to a place called Blue sky natural reserve which had some hiking trails leading to Lake Ramona. Unfortunately we weren't early enough to complete the trail. So we have planned to go back and complete the trek in one of the coming weekends. I had Kung Pao shrimp at Hunan Chinese Restaurant for dinner.

Garden update

Yay! Saw the first blooms of my sunflowers today. Sowed the seeds in spring and was so thrilled to see them grown so tall and blooming. Here it is,

When I woke up this morning, I realized my dish washer wasn't working and was so pissed off to see my sink. Washing dishes is one chore I hated at all times. Even now, VJ and I take turns to load the dish washer…so it is a difficult thing to handle when my dishwasher isn't working :( And when I told my friend Deepu about how I felt,  she took a quick picture of the dishes she washed by hand and sent it to me. 

Thats a lot of dishes to be washed by hand! So I thought I will try too and washed them looking out of my kitchen window at the beautiful sunflowers. Looked like they cheered for me ;)

They made me smile and made my day! :)

Weekend bits - Vol 2

This weekend, we dint do much outdoors. Coming back after a vacation, we were tired and thought we would spend some quality time at home. So on friday night, We got chinese food and watched movies at home. Watching movies at home is one of our favorite things after VJ installed the home theatre with speakers on the ceiling. 
On Saturday, we did some grocery shopping at Target and Costco. Dropped in at Islands Fine burgers and drinks for lunch. I loved the ambience, had a Hawaiian theme, all colorful and food was good too. We stopped at home depot and got some plants for the patio. Cooked a south Indian dinner at home - rice, carrot sambar and potato fry…comfort food…thats what am talking about!
Sunday morning, VJ made pancakes for breakfast, we called home and friends. Later in the day, we did some gardening and organized our patio. Now that we are spending a lot of our time in the patio, we thought we would keep it nice and happy :)

Repotted the plants with new soil

VJ did 2 mini home projects this weekend,

He put up this little ledger on the hallway to the dining room so that I could put my little souvenirs I collect during our travel. 

He also connected this chinese ball light in the patio which we bought in the SFO china town. 

We made a visit to North Park Produce, a middle eastern food and produce store. Luckily, we can find some Indian stuff too and its being very convenient for us. I stocked up on yoghurt and some Indian veggies. We found this interesting fresh tandoori naan they were selling. We tried them for dinner, they were huge and I made Gobi masala to go with it for dinner. 

The huge tandoori naan!

We watched our favorite show, The next food network star and enjoyed the naan. That was a fun weekend even though we dint do much outdoors. 
So there you have it . . . a couple of days' worth of this and that. Hope your week is shaping up to be happy and productive. Stay well . . . stay cool . . . and keep reading!       

July 4th weekend - Yosemite!

 Finally, here is the report of our first trip to Yosemite. It was the 4th of July weekend and we've been planning our trip to Yosemite National Park. Being kept informed of the huge crowds visiting the park that weekend, we thought we would take a day off and reach the park before the crowds could come in. So the idea was to fly to San Jose and drive from there to the park. We left San Diego and flew to San Jose on thursday night to Vasu's place. She had prepared yummy food and we had a fun night playing and laughing all night.
Day 1, 30th June: After a fun night, we woke up late and vasu had made pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast, VJ and Murugesh dropped us for some girly shopping and they left to get a rental car. We spent some quality time shopping clothes, shoes and our favorite things :) I noticed San Jose and around are highly populated by Indian communities and saw lots of Indian restaurants and shops. We were very excited to try some authentic Indian food which we crave for in San Diego. For lunch, we went to a place called Peacock serving lunch buffet and they had lots of options for vegetarians. Loved the hyderabadi dum biriyani :P 

Vasu's pancakes for bkfast

Post lunch, we started driving to Yosemite. It was a 4 hours drive and we entered through the Groveland-Big Oak flat entrance. We reached at around 6 pm and had 2.5 hrs to sunset. It was a 75 mile drive to Tuolumne meadows on 120 E. I would say this part of Yosemite is less crowded when compared to the Yosemite valley. It was a very scenic drive towards the tioga pass green everywhere, granite mountains, lakes and pristine mountain streams. There were campsites in the meadows and a perfect place to get away from the crowds and enjoy nature at its best. We stopped at the Olmsted point, Tenaya lake, Lambert dome and the Toulumne meadows for some stunning views. We liked the back view of the half dome from the Olmsted point better than the other popular views. Tenaya lake was another beautiful stop we made and clicked lots of pictures. We drove towards the meadows and spotted lots of deers on our way. The sunset was beautiful with pink skies :) We drove to Mariposa where we stayed for the night.

Small waterfalls on our way to Toulumne meadows

The Tenaya lake

Toulumne meadows

Day 2, July 1: We started early to the Yosemite valley to beat the crowds. It was an hour drive and very scenic. Our first stop was at the Yosemite falls. We took a short  hike and went very near to the falls and got drenched completely. It was a great experience and the falls was visible from various points in the park. We stopped at the Yosemite lodge food court for lunch. 

Yosemite falls

Yosemite valley

Lunch at Yosemite Lodge

Deer at the curry village

The tunnel view

Post lunch, we took the park shuttle and visited the curry village to shop some souvenirs. We then headed to the mirror lake and took a short hike to see the reflection of the half dome on the lake. I felt the tenaya lake was more beautiful than the mirror lake. On our way back, we stopped at the tunnel view and took some pictures. We then drove to the Glacier point. Our first stop was at the Washburn point which had stunning views of the Vernal falls and Nevada falls. The Glacier point was similar and had a slightly different angle with the yosemite falls and the valley in addition to it. This is where we spotted a brown bear in the wild and were so excited! That made our day :) Yosemite has to be one of the most scenic places anywhere. There are spectacular views almost anywhere in the Valley at any time of day. We headed back to Mariposa for our night stay.

View of Half dome from Glacier point

Day 3, July 2: We started off early to the Mariposa grove to see the Grizzly giant and the tunnel tree. We had to park our cars at the Wawona store and take the park shuttle. The park shuttle took us to the grove in 20 minutes. They had trail maps for the grove and we decided to take the 1.6 mile trail in the Lower grove that covered both the grizzly giant and the tunnel tree. Both trees are sure to impress. Giant Sequoias are the largest species of trees in the world by volume. I would say the Grizzly giant wasn't as big as the General Sherman tree in the Sequoia National Park! The trail to upper grove looked strenuous and steep and we skipped it. We returned to the Wawona hotel and had a late lunch. The ambience was nice. But it was scorching hot and the temperature was 105 F. Looked like we lost all our energy and thought we would head back home instead of driving back in to the valley. So headed back to Cupertino and reached late in the evening. We stopped by the fruit and nut farms on the way and the drive was scenic as well. We visited my cousin for dinner and had a good time.

The tunnel tree

The giant Sequoias

The Grizzly Giant tree

On the whole, Yosemite National park was beautiful, breathtaking, absolutely amazing. Literally. The views of the park were unbelievable, every step of the way. Everywhere we would look, it was another beautiful sight. We're glad we made the trip!

Day 4, July 3: After 3 days of driving and fun, we got good sleep today and took our time to start our day. We drove to the Livermore Shiva -Vishnu temple and got darshan. It was a beautiful place and my first time to a Hindu temple in the US. 

Livermore temple

 For lunch, we drove to Anjappar's at Milpitas and I tasted crab for the first time. We had amazing food and was food high for quite some time. I realized how much I craved for spicy Indian food. 

Tasting Crab at Anjappars

We drove back home, refreshed and drove to the Half moon bay beach for our photo shoot :P

At the half moon bay beach

Vasu and I bought a dress together and wanted some nice pictures and our hubbys were sweet enough to patiently take nice pictures of us. Thanks to VJ and Murugesh :) On our way back home, we stopped at Saravana Bhavan and bought some yummy traditional sweets. Being the 4th of July, we wanted to see some fireworks. 

4th of July fireworks

Vasu had prepared tandoori chicken for me and Murugesh had bought some Kothu parotta from Muniyandi Vilas. 

Vasu's Tandoori chicken

We took all the food to our friend Ramya's place. She had prepared some yummy Bisibela bath, curd rice and chaas.

Yummy food at Ramya's place

 We had a hearty dinner and had lots to catch up. We came back home tired and crashed to bed as we had to catch our flight early morning the next day. So that was how we spent our long wekkend…Definitely an unforgettable one!