The Story Of Us

Where do I even begin? Hope you all had a wonderful summer. And while we had a very rocky start to ours we were able to end it on a high note. Let's start with D. Thank you so much for your continued thoughts and prayers. They have helped immensely. While D had shown improvement compared to the early weeks of his diagnosis the doctor was still concerned with the speed of progress. There are three areas of concern, health of cornea, murdering of parasite and lastly vision. The murdering of the parasite has been going well.. not dead yet. But the doctor was especially concerned with the health of his cornea. So, we had cut our trip a little short so he could have an outpatient procedure done (applying amniotic membrane to his cornea) to boost it's health before school started. Well, (and this is where all your thoughts and prayers come in) when we arrived for the appointment the doctor was shocked at the recovery he had made in the past 10 days. So much so that he said the proced

We have been busy.. and I have very few pictures to show for it.  To begin.. the Rangers lost in the semi finals.. and I have a house full of disappointed boys. :(     My cousin graduated med school last week. She is originally from California so my aunt and uncle flew out for the big day.. my great aunt and uncle also joined in the festivities from Pennsylvania. We had dinner with the family in New York and then later in the week they all came to my house and we had a lovely (take out) dinner together. I especially enjoy watching my kids connect with our more distant relatives.  We also had a BBQ with some friends we hadn't met in over four years and reconnected like no time had passed. That I feel is the sign of a good friendship.   This weekend the boys were both staying at a friends house so M and I went out for burgers and then again out for breakfast. I don't think not having the kids in the house changed things much except that it was much quieter.  On Sunday they both

Where do I even begin? The weather has been awful, cold, gray and rainy on more days than I care for. Turns out we haven't had a rain free weekend since March 2nd!  We have just over a month of school left. I am ready for summer. It is getting harder and harder to wake up with that darn alarm every morning. But getting closer to end of year also means D graduating middle school and all the festivities that go with it. They already had their field trip to Philadelphia, second week of June the graduating class will be having a massive pool party, there is the dance which D is adamant about not attending and then of course graduation!  But it's not all fun and games.. he also has some big end of year projects he is working on. One of which I think might interest you.  He is working on a book report per se. He read the book Legend by Marie Lu . For his project he has to break down the books six most significant moments and give them a soundtrack. Yes you read that right.. projects

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