Family Hampers

It was refreshing to volunteer during the hustle and bustle of Xmas consumerism. Reshma coordinated the opportunity to help build Christmas hampers on behalf of the Marathi Society. The Union Gospel Mission had a list of families and some generous donors so we could help to make it a merrier xmas for all. We hope to coordinate more opportunities like this moving forward.

Faronics Holiday Party

This year was extra special because I had the chance to help coordinate our Xmas party. Everything went off without a hitch and everyone had a great time.. I would love to become a party coordinator some day :)

I convinced one of our employees who had a strong resemblance to jolly Old Nick to become our Santa Claus! The Winter Wonderland decor came out great as well... thanks to Radke Designs. We had a magician and a torot card reader to add to the entertainment.

We are off to Victoria soon thanks to Faronics recognizing our (Braden and I) efforts in coordinating the party!

Our Home

Three months after moving into our new place.. we finally finished painting the pasty white walls everywhere! Here is a small collection of some pictures taken over the past couple of months including pics of a recent snow fall in early December and the Rogers Santa Parade that happened down the street from us - we have an awesome clear view from our balcony.

Laser Tag for Shilpi

Good times.. nothing more needs to be said.. Happy Birthday Shilpi!

Paul & Anita Xmas Party

This year's annual Cyr Party was hosted at Chisa and Echo's home.. another great party as usual. Thanks for keeping the tradition alive! Cheers and Happy Holidays!

Accenture Xmas Party 2007

Deja vu! Another year has already passed and the Christmas party season started off with Reshma's. Did you know there are over 2,000 employees just in Vancouver? Like last year, we had a good time at the after-party at Ginger... the best part was living walking distance so I didn't have to play the designated driver.

Cancks vs. Blackhawks

Sweet seats baby. I am used to nose bleeds but it's a whole new world when you sit at row 3 - you can see the zits on the hockey players' face ;) - the highlight was when a fight broke out right in front of us and one of the players got bashed into the glass!

10 Year High School Reunion

Can't believe it's already been ten years since I graduated high school. We had an informal gathering at Shark Club where I got to catch with many of my friends. Unfortunately many folks didn't show up... out of 500 graduates, maybe 50 people were there. I would definitely recommend attending these reunions... it’s a refreshing blast from the past!

Garba & Happy Diwali

Happy Diwali everyone! The festive season already kicked off for us with Nav Ratri and Diwali celebrations. We danced garba, and ate lots of sweets the past few weeks. One highlight included papa winning the prize for best senior garba performer :)

Booo!

Scary Movie Night 2 was.. well, SCARY.. Neil was trying to spook people by pretending to be Hemanshu - unfortunately it didn't work as he was charming everyone in the room ;)..

We watched American Psycho (not so scary) and Hostel (pure gore)... Reshma was up for an hour cause she was really disturbed.. next year we'll watch Saw IV!

Osoyoos Weekend

We enjoyed a weekend in Wine Country, on beautiful Okanagan lake. Quite an adventure driving there, as we ran out of gas and thought we would get stuck in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Thankfully we made it to the town of Princetown, where we refueled and had a pizza party! Good times and good company, hopefully we'll go back when it's warmer in the summer and the spiders have hidden away in the cottage.

Europe was a blast

We managed to both take three weeks off and backpack across England, Italy, and Spain. We started off with a quick stopover in Calgary, landing in London. We spent three days in Birmingham with Bharat Uncle, Naina Aunty, Kavita, and Vikas. From there we went back to London and stayed with Rajeev and Kajal for another three days. Highlights included Stratford upon Avon, Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, and London Eye.

We took Ryan Air (crap) to Rome and had an awesome time exploring the Coliseum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and best of all, Vatican City. From Rome we went to Sorrento and Capri where we saw the Blue Grato. We stayed in scary Naples for a night and took a flight to Florence were the gothic church Doumes and David were there highlights. After Florence, we went to Venice where we visited various glass factories in Murano and got rained in at St. Mark's Basilica. Venice was beautiful, however it had a very “touristy” feeling. From Venice, we took a train to Milan, fashion capital, where we checked out D&G, Armani, Juicy Couture.. then off to Madrid, Spain.

Madrid had a good variety of food - great break from all that Italian food. We discovered Fresca which is like Salad Loop except way better and they have plenty of locations. Madrid highlights included Palacio Real de Madrid and clubbing till 5 am - El Junco was a great Jazz Club. We also took a train to Toledo for a day where we visited one of the oldest cathedrals. From Madrid we went to Costa Del Sol (Malaga). We used this as a hub to visit The Alhambra Palace in Granada and Najera Beach. The Alhambra Palace was one of our favourite places in Spain as it had exquisite Islamic architecture.

Our last stop was Barcelona where we stayed less than ten minutes from Las Ramblas. We checked out almost all of Antoni Gaudi’s modernist architecture, including Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Casa Batilo, and Casa Mila . We spent the last night drinking Sangria and watching a Flamenco dance, ending off clubbing at Las Ramblas. A great story to cap off our last day - we missed our flight out of Barcelona! Ryan Air flies out of rinky dink airports so we spent 130 Euros on an hour long ride by taxi from the main airport only to miss our flight and having to buy brand new tickets. Reshma was not impressed. We took an early morning bus from Luton to Heathrow to catch our flight back home!!

Overall, we had a great time and would be happy to make recommendations to anyone planning a similar itinerary. Hope you Enjoy the pictures…

Off to Europe

Well guys, we are finally off for our much anticipated Europe trip. We are looking forward to visiting England, Italy, and Spain. Over 21 days, we are traveling on 9 flights and 3 trains. I am updating this post from the Calgary airport and we will try to post more whenever we have access to the Internet. Arrivederci or adios.

One Year!

So I was thinking to myself how to top the proposal surprise to Reshma two years ago. She always figures out my surprises so I had to be extra sneaky this time. I got a handful of people involved and asked their help with coordinating this one. I rented a moving truck, packed everything and moved us Downtown!

Reshma came home on Thursday to a brand new home - she was shocked and all she could say was "you moved me!". After letting it sink in for a weekend, she loves our new place at the corner of Burrard and Smithe. We are looking forward to starting a new chapter in our lives. Many thanks to Mum and Dad for their support and help with moving and getting our new kitchen started (Reshma loves to cook). Also a big thanks to Alpesh bhai and Neil for all their help with moving.

On the day of the move, we started unloading the truck, only to be stuck outside because a real fire broke out on the 11th floor of the building! We had to wait outside until the situation was under control after almost two hours!

PatioParty 2007

We had a blast celebrating Patio Party V. We also celebrated Hemanshu's birthday. Thanks for coming out and making this another memorable party.

Reshma gets a year older

We celebrated Resh's birthday the old school way - dinner and clubbing. Granted we are not that old, we haven't done that so much lately. I surprised Reshma with a limo and we went down to Moxie's for dinner followed by AuBar. Thanks to all those who made it out - we had a blast!

I've got Joost invites

Contact me if you are interested in Joost! What is Joost?

More Deeya Pictures

We got some more pictures of Deeya, including ones from our recent visit to New Jersey. Here is the link.

San Fran Shindig

San Fran March '07 019,
originally uploaded by reshmanshu.

More than 2,300 Accenture people and their guests attended a night of “High Stakes & International Intrigue” on March 3rd at San Francisco City Hall. Hemanshu flew down to San Francisco to attend the black tie festivities, and we had a blast being 'high rollers' for a night.

Trip to New York to visit Deeya

We made a trip to New York in February to visit our new niece Deeya, Snehal and Parag. Mama and Mamee had a fun time playing with Deeya, although much of her time was spent sleeping and eating. Of course, no trip would be complete to the Big Apple without some sightseeing – we visited Rockefellar center, watched a show on Broadway (the Producers), and took a walk in Time Square on Saturday night.

As well, we had a chance to visit Smita, Tapan, Rohan and Sejal in Teaneck NJ. Rohan kept us thoroughly entertained, and it was great to finally visit Smithers at her home.

Besides the freezing cold…we had a great time and hope to visit again soon!

We got a Beamer!

After selling the 240SX in September, we finally have a car now! We got a BMW 325CI - Reshma's favourite feature is the booster seats and the light on the sun visor :-)

Mama and Mami!!

We are officially mama (uncle) and mami (aunty). Snehal and Parag had a beautiful baby girl in New Jersey! Their first of many more to come :) - Her name is Deeya Parag Bavishi and she weighed in at 6 lbs 2 ozs. Congratulations you two!

You can view more pictures here.

New Year's Eve 2006

That was an awesome NYE. Thanks to everyone who came out to ring in 2007 with us. The karaoke was a huge success and some people should definetely audition for Canadian Idol ;) Check out the YouTube links below.

Grease Paul & Dorian Countdown Jason & Sejal Listen to Your Heart