The Story Of Us

Not much has been going on lately. Today marks day 23 of fasting. The countdown has begun.  It has been raining pretty steadily here.. not my favorite weather but it also means things are starting to bloom. The kids just started their spring break and just because we can't go anywhere right now doesn't mean I am not planning the rest of the years trips.  A couple weekends ago we hosted an iftar (breaking of fast) party at our house and I made these delicious pistachio tiramisu . Very easy and super yummy.  M and I really liked these coconut clusters at Costco to use as granola but they no longer carry them and after trying a few other granola's and not loving them I decided to make my own. So easy.. why have I not been doing this all along?! I used coconut flakes, pumpkin seeds, sunflowers seeds, ground chia seeds, ground flax seeds, pecans, cinnamon and steel cut oats. And bound the mixture using honey, vanilla and coconut oil.    In addition, to help us get through our Ra

Life took a bit of a turn while I was writing this post. I had, in my head a list of things I had wanted to share and then I woke up to a flooded basement. Yup, so that happened. Plus M was in a plane heading to Asia while all this went down. All fun stuff.  So all of last week we were having issue with our water pressure. Thursday morning M leaves and I have the guy from the water company come out to check our water pressure etc. On the safe side (because M is a planner) we also had a plumber dropping by in the evening. Just to cover our bases. The water company guy said there is most likely a leak in the service line and not their problem. Thankfully the plumber was set to come. He checked it out.. spotted some wet spots on our walls and said it was definitely a larger issue. Unfortunately, he was booked sold for the next two weeks. So 8pm I sit and sent out a bunch of texts to every plumber on M's phone. Just to get the ball rolling and would reach out to them again via phone on

How are we all doing? Where has time flown by? Farewell summer (I am happy to say mainly because it has been just so so hot), hope you all had a good one. And hello September, which of course means back to school. They are three days in at this point and D has homework every single day. Even the weekend. I am not a big fan of enormous amounts of homework especially on the weekend. H on the other hand had no homework and I wished his teacher had at least given him something. Never satisfied are we?  Both boys will do there regular sports this year, D wants to join the chess club as well (he has developed a sudden and intense interest in it this past year) There is also a podcasting club (new) and I am pushing him into trying it out.    This has been quite the summer.. we started it off with our trip to Switzerland and wrapped it up with a trip to California.. but more on that soon. When we weren't traveling  The boys were playing tennis with their favorite coach. This was also H'

It's been a busy last few weeks but not much has happened really..  With school, extracurriculars and the heaps of homework D gets, even on weekends has been keeps our weekdays full.  My mom visited for two weeks, so that was nice. We tried out a new breakfast place while she was here. Our old go to best breakfast ever restaurant closed :( so we are trying to find a replacement.  M and I also went out on a breakfast date.. we had decided last month over our birthday breakfast that we were going to make this a monthly thing and well I guess we did it.. now let see how many months we can make it. We have no vacation plans till the summer.. so I am trying to focus I wanderlust on picking out some fun new destinations. What country or city is on your bucket list?  I have all our travel posts here  something to maybe get you inspired.  D had a map up in his room with pin for everywhere he has been.. there is still a lot of empty places.. so much still to see and explore. I finished my s

January was a bit of a blur and just like that it is already over.       We started the year off with H turning nine and hosted an epic secret agent birthday party for him.  I started the year of with a fun puzzle. It was super cute and easy. There was one missing piece though. We also made a visit to the orthodontist and found out that D has completed his invisalign treatment. And will now only have to wear a retainer at night.. wohoo. While I am not allowed to share his before teeth.. he did give me permission to share his after. He still has some baby teeth left so the doc will monitor accordingly. But the improvement has been massive.. especially if you knew what the before looked like. We also made a really short trip to Houston over a long weekend. My sister in law lives there and we hadn't seen them in a few years and her kids had been begging for a visit. We had a great time.. tons of family bonding and great food. Houston is the hub of desi (pakistani/indian) food.. and o

Now that we have wrapped up our Greece adventure   I guess we have no choice but to talk about the now. What have we been up to lately..  Not much honestly, kids are back to their regular routines of school and extracurriculars. H is really into all sports right now.. so he plays a little soccer, basketball and tennis. D on the other hand plays tennis and is in the math club and coding class. Meaning time is scarce and then of course the heaps of homework D gets is a whole other story. So not much excitement over the week.  The boys did manage to go watch a Giants game. They even got to fist bump a player whose name I have already forgotten.  We also put up our Halloween decorations. Halloween is a big holiday for us, we host a yearly party as well. I'll share more pics later.  I have been keeping an eye out for some versatile earrings.. I wore hoops on our trip and I loved how they elevated the looks, went with everything and were easy to pack. I found some chic hoop earrings .

Summer break has come to an end and we wrapped up our month long whirlwind adventure. I have got so much to share with you all but before we get to that I want to share with you what's going on right now. Last Sunday we got home, late, jet lagged after a 10 hour flight, kids in a sleepy daze to discover that our refrigerator was broken. Insert horror movie scream here. Thankfully the refrigerator had been mostly empty but the freezer was not and oh the smell. M and I spent an extra hour trying to will the refrigerator back to life, along with Googling and disposing of the food in the freezer. We arrived in the midst of a 3 day weekend so no help was to be found.. and did I mention the smell.  On Monday we Googled some more and tired some DIY tricks to get the refrigerator back in action. It almost even worked.. it cooled for a couple of hours and then went back to dead. All the while unpacking, laundry and getting the kids ready for their first day of school. Tuesday everyone went

The leg compression socks did not work, they gave a good leg massage but they were too clunky and at far too many wires sticking out of them, not practical for me to put them on in the middle of the night when my RLS is acting up. And using them before made did nothing to help with the RLS either. So they will be returned. I have also been badly hit with allergies this year. So I am drinking a lot of tea. It's not my drink of choice but it helps keeping me feeling good in the cold wintry months and I guess now in the spring as well. In hot water I pop in two tea bags, one green tea and one of the Traditional Medicinals Tea , a splash of lemon juice, honey and a shot of The Ginger Peoples Pure Ginger Juice .  I was not reading much during Ramadan.. so I finally picked a book out off my stash. I feel like being swept away into a fantasy so I choose An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. We were waiting on a couple of replacement items in our kitchen which arrived last week and were fi

lately things have been busy.. a lot more busy than I like my summers to be and with a lot more morning alarms than I would like. Our first two weeks of July were family filled. My parents left, my in laws arrived (they live with us for parts of the year) and then my sister in law came for a visit with her two kids.. they are very similar aged to ours which meant lots of love, laughter and lots of fights.  The next week and the week ahead are full of classes. D is taking an intense tennis class bright and early every other morning.. hence the need for an alarm. And then both boys are doing their annual summer swim crash course.. but thankfully things will all slow down as the month ends and then we can take a little break.. with no alarms.  How's summer been treating you? Now a question for my crafty friends.. my son attended a paint by arrow class. Paint filled balloons dangled over a canvas and he shot arrows at them.  This is the canvas he created. Now I was thinking this could