Little bit of India

For those of you that tune in to read Cari's posts I am sorry. You have to deal with me yet again. This is a means of my girls and I communicating to some extent. Please bear with me, I know my posts aren't as good as Cari's, but hopefully I won't type a whole lot, the pictures should tell the stories themselves.

My friend/co-worker Kumaravel took Brian and I out all day long. I feel bad for the poor guy, hope it wasn't too bad for him. Thanks Kumaravel - we really appreciate it.

We went to this absolutely awesome place called Mahabalipuram. Basically, there are a lot of large stones (granite I believe, but now I'm not sure) that they carved beautiful temples into/out of over a thousand years ago. They call them monolithic stones because the whole temple is carved out of one stone. For a better explanation click the name of the place above, it is a link.

According to the tour guy this is an ancient slide. Basically, an old-school playground.

This stone apparently is natural. The tour guy said the British tried to pull it down using 5 elephants (because it was thought to be dangerous) and it didn't budge.
So maybe stories in this stone wall. No way I could include them all in the blog (sorry, Cari or I will have to tell you personally).


Notice how my facial hair experiment works well on the right side, but not so well on the left. :-)

There are actually 5 temples here, one for each of 5 brothers. If I understood correctly, they are all made of one continuous stone. Even if I am incorrect, each building is a single stone.

Remember, a single stone..... This one actually has a large crack in it from an earthquake that they had to patch (can't really see it in this picture although the ones on the top may be related.)

We also went to a place called the Crocodile Bank. Basically, a large zoo for crocodiles. This isn't like any zoo we in the states (or rather Utah) would be used to. You actually get to see the crocodiles move and very close.



All of the crocodiles sat around most of the time. When the keeper came out with food and said something all the crocodiles started moving like crazy. This one wasn't shy at all. The best part was when a kid walked up to the wall to peak over and saw the open mouth of a crocodile that close. Needless to say he screamed a bit and jumped back - I would have too.
Kumaravel and Brian. Just an example of how most of the enclousures are setup.


In the evening we were able to do some shopping. I was able to get some clothing for Cari and the girls. I was even able to find a little dress for our new baby in August. Just kidding, I don't know what we are having yet. :-) I did find a present that works for a boy or girl baby though. Kumaravel had a friend join us to help with our shopping. His friend is a girl, the question of course is she just a friend or is she more... Now I sound like Cari. Just teasing you Kumaravel. :-)

I got each of the girls two dresses and Cari a Salwar. I don't want to spoil the surprise so I only am posting a picture of one of each of the girl's dresses. This red one is for Lainey.

This one is for Lilly. I must say this is probably my crowing achievement as a father. I don't think the picture does it any justice. Basically, it looks like the dress Belle wears in Beauty and Beast. All you parents of girls know what I am talking about. I just wish they had one in Lainey's size too. It took me about 0.00001 seconds to decide to get it. Awesome!!!