Mangalore Wedding photo

Shae and Hannah didn't have the camera with them at the actual ceremony of the wedding they attended in Nov. in Mangalore (see post about their train trip). Here's a shot of the bride and groom and Target folks.

 

A warm welcome home

Dear friends,

THANK YOU for your Christmas cards! We were delighted by a big stack of them upon our return from Pondicherry. It was wonderful to see your pictures and read your updates. It's funny how nice it is just to see your familiar handwriting. Thank you, thank you for the time and effort you took.

And thank you for reading our blog. :) You are kind to remember us and share in this adventure with us.

Unfortunately, we returned to another not-so-pleasant welcome... there had been some small "visitors" to our home. I won't go into the gory details because my dear mother-in-law might not come to visit us. She's not fond of rodents. The good news is we haven't seen them since our return and we now have a clean storage closet. Ahem.

Love from the tropics,
Lisa--for all the McCowens

Pondicherry - photos

We had a truly wonderful, relaxing and refreshing vacation. It was an absolute delight to have extended time with Uncle Scotty and Aunt Gladdy.

We stayed at an amazing place: The Dune, an Eco-village. It was an incredibly well-planned resort with a host of creative energy-saving and green ideas implemented from start to finish. A highlight for me: organically grown vegetables on site (40 acres of land!), a wonderful walking path and lots of healthy food. The kids loved riding their bikes everywhere (2 km loop), milking cows, seeing rabbits, turkeys and riding Laxmi the elephant.
For more info: The Dune

Here are pictures of us enjoying the place and each other:


And here is Shae's artistic capturing of the place:
(The first 9 photos are of the villa "Family House" where we stayed and the rest are of other parts the resort.)

Pondicherry: on the way there and back

Photos from the car window... with explanatory captions!

New Year's Eve in Pondi

Laxmi, the elephant

 

Laxmi "blessing" Hannah

 

Family photo attempt

 

Scotty & Gladdy enjoying the lovely evening

 

A delicious traditional lunch

Pondicherry is on the east coast of India, about 300 Km from Bangalore (though it takes 7 hours to get there!).

We were treated to a delicious lunch at one of Shae's team member's home. He was with his family in Pondicherry over the Christmas vacation and hosted us, feeding us a wonderful spread of seafood dishes on traditional banana leaves.

 

 

Pondicherry: Cultural performance

Here's the first post of many about our wonderful trip to Pondicherry with my awesome bro and sis-in-law...