Tooth Fairy

Tooth fairy usually brings a dollar for each tooth in my house. My older son (9) just lost his first premolar at school. His friend told him that he had got $5 and a T-shirt from the tooth fairy.

Innocently, he asked me, "Momma, how many tooth fairies are there?"

I said just one.

He then said, "How come the tooth fairy gives $5 and a T-shirt to my friend and only a dollar to me ?"

I said, "Maybe you never asked her to give you more."

This is how it all started. That night Soryan wrote a note to the tooth fairy to give him $10 for his tooth. So the tooth fairy's husband fell for it and gave him a $10.

Soryan was thrilled and says, "Only if I knew about this earlier, I would be rich."

(The tooth fairy is thinking of leaving a note for him, that this was only a one time offer.)

Jamaica - What a place!

Finally school was almost over and we decided to take a break from our busy schedules. Memorial Day was around the corner and I found a great all inclusive deal for a resort located in OchoRios, Jamaica. This resort had a 330 feet water slide which was enough to make the decision. The flight was just hour and half from Fort Lauderdale and we landed in Montego Bay all excited. The only drawback was that Ocho Rios is 3 hours away from the airport. We took our shuttle from the airport to the Hotel, which stopped over for a 10 minute break. What a gorgeous ocean view. The weather was just perfect with a nice breeze.

It was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend and apparently Jamaica has a National holiday on this day. The hotel lobby was packed with people and the check-in seemed to take forever. I guess we forget that rest of the world is not workaholic like us. Everything there was pretty laid back and nobody was in a hurry to get anything done. It just takes some time to realize and get in the mode. Finally after a few fruit punches we got our room key. The room was nice with a partial ocean and city view. The kids were ecstatic and quite eager to get in the pool. We quickly changed and went down to make dinner reservations and inquire about excursions.

The boys went in the pool and I went straight to check on different activities during our 4 day stay. I planned out each day for all of us which included a trip to the famous Dunn Falls, swimming with Sting rays and Dolphins, and the famous Canopy tour.

Climbing the Dunn Falls was amazing. I truly cannot describe the beauty of these falls. The water was icy cool and took us a while to get used to the temperature.

I had reserved the Speciality restaurants at the resort for dinner each day of our stay. The first night we ate at Ginger Lily, superb Asian cuisine. Even my kids who are quite picky ate the food. La Diva was the resorts Speciality Italian. What an experience, it was the best Italian food I have had. We went there again the next day :)

I had heard about canopy tours where they take you to a mountain top and then you glide down on ropes and cables. The roads were pretty rough and a small mistake could have ended our car in the valley below. We were all holding our breath and were quite nervous. Once we reached the mountain top, our group was given a quick demonstration on how to use the cable and trolley. Then we were all given the gear and had to wear them. We must have hiked in the mountains for a good 10 minutes to reach the platforms. There were tall trees all around with beautiful tropical vegetation. There was a creek flowing in the valley deep below. The view was just amazing. Now came the part when they told us to start sliding on the cables from one platform to another which was around 40 feet apart. I somehow managed to go but my legs were shaking so hard that I could hardly stand after that. It was nerve recking. After 2 glides, we all got used to it and started enjoying it. The last dip was about 600 feet. It was truly a thrilling experience.

The most beautiful part was watching the sunrise from the resort. It was so peaceful and gorgeous. This trip was all and more than we had planned and hoped for. What a wonderful relaxing vacation.

Bush Gardens -Tampa

After having such a wonderful time at Magic Kingdom, when our friends mentioned that they were going to Bush Gardens we quickly made plans with them. This was the second Spring Break my kids have in March. We decided to leave on a Thursday and come back Sunday which would give us enough time to do other things in Tampa as well. During this time of the year for Florida residents, Bush Garden offers tickets which residents can use through out the year for the same price.

On Thursday we tried to leave early but couldn't till 6PM. We reached at the hotel around 10 PM and went straight to bed. Unlike us, our friends are very late risers. We did not leave the hotel till 11:30 AM and by the time we got into the park it was already 12 PM. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day but the park turned out to be exceptionally crowded. All the rides had at least 45 minutes wait. We decided to do the water rides first since it was very hot. Soryan, Ashwin (my friends son) and myself were the only people who went on all the water rides. We were all soaking wet but had a wonderful time at those rides. After that we tried to cover a little more at the park but it was already late and we were all tired. We had not even seen 1/3 rd of the park so we decided to come again the following day. We were all hungry and went to Tia's, a Mexican restaurant close to Bush Gardens and our hotel. The service was amazing, the food was excellent, and the margaritas were outstanding. Overall the day turned out to be great.

When we got up the next day it was very cloudy. This time we managed to get to the park at 11 AM. We went around and saw some animals. As soon as we hopped on the train to see the rest of the animals it started pouring. Even with raincoats it was very hard to see and move around. We decided to call it quits and go back to our hotel where we had a bottle of wine and lots of snacks. Later in the evening when it stopped raining we went to TGIF for dinner. The food was good and the service was excellent. Tampa somehow excels at service.

We were planning to go to the beach on Sunday, instead decided to go to Bush Gardens again to cover the rest of the park. The day was beautiful and the boys went to check out Kumba. Soryan was very excited and thoroughly enjoyed it. I took Arnav to the kids area with my friend and her younger son Ahil. They both went on the kiddie rides and had lot of fun. Around 1 PM we left the park to go for lunch at an Indian restaurant called Cilantros. The food was delicious! While we were getting out of the park we saw a beautiful white peacock sitting on the fence. A few minutes later this peacock opened it's feathers and started dancing. It was an amazing site. After a while we started wondering why this peacock kept doing this mating dance when there was no female peacock in sight. And then we saw a small unsuspecting bird of an entirely different species busy eating in front of the peacock. The poor peacock was so confused, we could not stop laughing after that and the sight still brings tears to my eyes.

Magic Kingdom

Our kids had an early winter break in February, so we decided to go to Orlando. This was the first time the kids were going to the Disney parks. Our plan was to go to Animal Kingdom, but since it was cloudy and the chances of rain were very high we decided to go to Magic Kingdom. It was so beautiful with the flowers in bloom.


After a good satisfying breakfast we arrived around 9 AM on Saturday at the park. All the rides were walk in with no wait time. We also made good use of the fast pass where ever we could. Since we thought it would rain we wanted to cover all the outdoor rides, like the Indi Car drive, Thunder mountain, Splash Mountain, and so on. As soon as we got out of the Indi ride it started pouring but that did not dampen our spirits. We were having way too much fun.


Usually it is very hard to see everything at the Disney parks, but by 5 PM we had covered everything we had wanted to do there. (Of course we completely ignored the baby area :)

Soryan had to do a paper on Tom Sawyer so we went to explore the Tom Sawyer Island. It

was great fun. I am not fond of rides but Soryan dragged me to the Splash Mountain and I loved it. Then he forced all of us to go to the Thunder Mountain. I loved that too. Of all the rides we did there Splash Mountain and Thunder railroad became my favorites. Even Arnav enjoyed them. The trip was amazing. We all had such a wonderful time there. We still have 3 more tickets left. I think I will go again in October when it's not too hot.