Meredith's birthday trip to India

So a tradition in our family is that you get a trip with Mom when you turn 9.  we were able to surprise Regan, but obviously Jane and Meredith knew it was coming - but we try to keep some element of surprise.  So on Meredith's birthday, she opened an envelope with the dates of the trip but the destination was kept a secret.

The destination was inspired by Meredith's love of yoga so we headed to India for some relaxing, yoga and a 1/2 day cooking school.  Now India conjures up chaos, giant cities and masses of people.  We kept our trip basically "India-light" and just headed to the more sedate southern state of Kerala.  Please don't ask me what airport we flew into.  I tried to learn how to pronounce it the whole time we were there and finally just gave up.  They do have a shortened version of it that is used in some places (in fact, I read it on the hotel website with the directions from the airport and it caused me to panic thinking I bought tickets into the wrong airport!).

We had a great time exploring, swimming, doing yoga, Indian crafts and hanging out on the beach.  Unfortunately the last day and a half, I was pretty debilitated with "Delhi Belly" and we had to cancel a few things.  Fortunately Meredith didn't get sick (yay!) and we made it home okay and I didn't have to push our flight back.   Since it was just the two of us, I didn't do a great job taking photos but I did manage to get a few.

See!!  I told you the name of the city has a zillion letters

This was great - the hotel sent a guy to pick us up at the airport.  It was about 8 p.m. at night and Meredith was hungry.  I didn't look forward to having to schlep to a hotel restaurant that late at night but the hotel sent a giant hamper in the car with a picnic dinner!  How did they know we would be hungry?  Sandwiches, fruit and several drinks (even a beer if you are so inclined!).  What a nice touch.

At check in.  Refreshed from our in-car picnic dinner and now getting a fresh coconut to sip on.

View from the front porch of our tiny cottage. That's Mere in her favorite spot - our very own hammock.

Overlooking the pool

We're way up high with a fun little hike down to the beach

Canoes going by down below

Meredith liked this funny elephant statue

At the pool - not as much fun without the sisters!  But still fun.

Hiking to the right beach (spent time the next day on the "left" beach)

*Back* at the hammock - she had to stop there most times we were in and out of our cottage!

Mere's favorite dessert - nutella crepes and this time they sent along little fried chocolate samosas.  Yummy!

Our bed with the "princess" (aka mosquito) net

We were able to make a flower "rug" - it took a bit of time to tear all the flowers into small pieces and arrange them.

Tearing up the fresh flowers into small bits

Ta-da!  Finished product.

Exploring

Gorgeous greenery, trees and flowers

Watching an older man shimmy up the tree to cut down some coconuts

Namaste - the gorgeous outdoor yoga spot with the ocean on three sides

Our little cottage with the hammock out front.

My little yogi

Looking down at the right beach before hiking down again

The array of spices for our cooking class.  Each bowl has a different spice in it.

Helper chef, main chef and Meredith chef

Meredith's reaction to the cooking class.  Most boring thing ever, she said.  She was right, it was awful.  We didn't do a thing and just watched the whole time.

But we were able to eat a lot of yummy foods that we got to watch getting made.

Off to more fun running around the "left" beach.  The waves were HUGE (too big to swim) but fun to run from so that they didn't wash us away.

Hard to tell from this picture how big these waves were but definitely significantly taller than me.

Outdoor shower!

Low tech version of mosquito control - some kind of scented charcoal with a lot of smoke.  Cough. Cough.

Sunset.  This is when I started feeling really not-so-great (the beginning of "Delhi Belly"). Nice view (and good company) though.

Beautiful 9-year old on our last night.