Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Dilwale Dulhaniya le gaye! (D + S)

Yayy! My best friend - Deepika got married to the love of her life - Susil on December 6th, 2014 :) 

I am super happy and super excited for both of you. Its so true that marriages are made in heaven and you guys proved it right! Deepika, you look gorgeous on your wedding just like a princess. Very, very graceful! I feel so sorry for not being able to make it to your BIG DAY, but looking forward to celebrating with you once you guys are back :) I am sure you had a fun-filled and a grand wedding ceremony :) We wish you many many congratulations for starting this beautiful journey of togetherness. May you be blessed with never ending love, care, affection, happiness, respect today and forever! May you cherish every fragrant breeze this bond brings for you. Marriage is a beautiful time when two souls start to share one heart. Let your love for each other grow with every passing day. Keep smiling! Keep shining! Have a happy married life! 

Lots of love - Manojaya!

Beautiful Bride and the Groom!


Dilwale Dulhaniya le gaye!


Pyar hua, Ikrar hua hai, Pyar se fir kyoon darta hai dil ! (R + A)

So friends, it was one winter evening of december two thousand and fourteen, when all of us from Play-By-The-Bay met three new friends. It was raining heavily but fortunately everyone from the group was so excited to welcome our new friends that all of us made it :) The place where we all met is called Amber India - one of the best Indian restaurants to welcome new friends in the group ;) Two of them came all the way from Houston! Such an adorable couple they are :) And the third one is our special friend from bay area itself! We all had lots of fun, chatting with her and pulling her legs for little things :P Looking forward to meet all of them much more often. Here are a few pictures that we took on this beautiful evening! This evening was/is very special and shall be remembered for the rest of our lives and so it has been documented :D 

Thirteen Cheers! 

M <3 J 

The group!



PS: If you are reading this and wondering why is the title out of sync with the content then let me tell you that the title of this post is very apt and it is left to the reader to make their own interpretation ;) Hint: There is at least one photo in the pictures which goes with the title, doesn't it? :D #SecretsICantReveal 

Monday, December 15, 2014

Manoj Happy Birthday 2014

This year on Manoj's birthday we had multiple celebrations :) Manoj invited his colleagues for our house warming party at our home sweet home. I baked a pina-colada cake for him. The theme for the cake was email and calendar app for the fire phone as he works for the same. Here are a few pictures from the party.

Email and Calendar app themed cake!

Cake cutting! yayy!
Happy Birthday to you :)



<3
Later that evening, we went to the city for a bollywood night party! It was a lot of fun. We had endless dance, drinks and the moves!



In spirit of Movember!

On the next day, Manoj was suffering from the after effects of booze at the bollywood night and we took it light during the day. In the evening, some of his friends gave a surprise visit and we did the cake cutting again and went out for dinner with them :)

Red velvet cake :)

Happy birthday once again :)

This video is from last year. I made this video for Manoj for his birthday in 2013. And the cake in the video is also baked by me ;) That was my inception at the baking ;)




Monday, December 8, 2014

Goodbye bayarea, Hello Minnesota ! (A + R)

Goodbyes are not forever, Goodbyes are not the end,
They simply mean, "I'll miss you," until we meet again!

One of my cute friends' left to Minnesota last week. Goodbyes are never easy but I am happy saying goodbye as she left for the love of her life :) (Love ke liye kuch bhi karega types!) I am happy to see her go and start a new life with her love! I wish her a very blessed and a very happy life now and forever :) Here is a picture of the personalized gift that she gave me when she invited us to meet Rishabh before leaving to Minnesota! 
In return, I also decided to give her a personalized gift before she left, so I made a candle with her picture on it. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the candle to post it here.

Many many congratulations to Ami and Rishabh for starting this beautiful journey of togetherness! Hope you cherish each and every second of your togetherness and wish you all the happiness, love, care, affection and success in your life ahead! 

Loads of love - Manojaya <3 

Love you, Ami!

First take on Fondant!

November is the month of birthdays. Not only does Manoj have his birthday in November but lot of my friends have their birthdays in the month of November. So, it is a month of baking cakes :) My interest in baking cakes rose in the month of November when it was Manoj's first birthday with me in 2013. I wanted to make his birthday special so I decided to bake a cake. Baking it yourself gives a very personal touch as opposed to getting it from the best possible bakery in town! And guess what I gained interest in baking so much that I bake cake for (most of) my friend's birthdays' whenever possible.  This year I wanted to do something different so I decided to take my first trial with Fondant! Well, I do not like the taste of Fondant, but the cake looks so beautiful. You can make endless designs/patterns with fondant. So, I wanted to give it a shot. Also, sometime this november, Manoj had mentioned that he loves Pina-Colada cake. So, I had another flavor to try on! 

Here are a few pictures of Pina-Colada cake that I made for Shrushti's and Manoj's birthday this year. 

Fire phone - Email and Calendar app themed cake!





Shrushti's fashionista themed birthday cake 2014!

Friday, December 5, 2014

It's December already !!!

I came across this on Instagram and felt like so apt for me. I have so much to write on my blog for 2-0h-14 !!! This shall keep me motivated :)

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Manojaya !!!

Yayy!!! Its a month of celebrations :) Its my wedding anniversary month :) I am so excited for the first anniversary that is just 23 days away ! I was revisiting my wedding website today and realized I haven't posted it here. Its has lots of memories of our journey from Courtship to Wedding! Visit manojaya !!

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Another hand-written letter :)

It had been only few days at our new home and we weren't used to the new door-bell sound. So, both of us ignored that sound although it was noticed by both of us ;) It was the time of Diwali and was around 7pm in the evening. We as usual were preparing the list of shopping for our new home. We weren't celebrating Diwali as much as we were planning/window-shopping for our home. And suddenly I realized that we should have got our "Bed Bath and Beyond"'s order of curtains today. So, I quickly ran down to see if there was any parcel at our door step. And to my surprise, there were two :) I wasn't very much interested in that bigger packet as I knew it had the curtains that we had ordered. I was curious to find out what did this small chotu sa packet had. I read on the parcel that it was coming from LA and was named under CG. Oh, then I realized why Aditi asked me my home address. I was excited to open it and to my surprise I got this cute little gift for our new home with lots of love from Aditi and CG. Awww, how sweet of both of them to send us such a sweet token of love. And of course making our Diwali a special one. I don't know much about CG (he is one of manoj's besties - that's all I know about him and I respect him) but I love Aditi, she is such a sweetheart. I can never forget our last couple of meetings when we met at Pismo beach and she was all cold in the month of may! And then she came to SF when we took both of them around in the city. I have very fond memories with her although for a very short period of time. But how can I forget mentioning, she is my sole inspiration for making me write this blog again! I am a big fan of her. She is adorable! Thank you so much sweetheart for the lovely gift for our new home and the amazing hand written best wishes for both of us! That letter means a lot to me. I love hand-written letters ;) 


Tuesday, November 11, 2014

A short trip to Cancun! Part 1

After postponing trip to Philly a couple of times, finally we cancelled the trip to Philly and instead we decided to meet bhaiya and bhabhi and mummy in Cancun! We finally were prepared for this trip and this was the first time ever in my life, I didn't plan anything in the trip. It was not because I was not excited but the reason being I was super busy at the time. This trip was scheduled just for 4 days in Cancun. We left early in the morning at 3am on 24th Sep which was a friday and our flight was from SFO. We flew to LA and reached there at 8:30 am. We got a couple of hours of lay-over where we planned our next trip to Vegas during Christmas ;) In those 3 hours of time we booked our flight tickets to Vegas! 

We reached Cancun at 8:30 pm and it was super hot. We started stripping clothes off as we were wearing layers of clothes ;) Bhaiya came to pick us up at the airport and he drove us to the hotel which was located in Caracol. The name of the resort we spent most of time in Cancun is called Sandos! We met our sweetie-cutie little munchkins named Anaya and Sanaa at the entrance of the hotel itself. Next, I was super excited for the food. I really love mexican food (from what I know after eating for couple of hundreds of times at Chipotle) After reaching Sandos, first thing we had is lot of salsa and chips and guacomole at La-Laguna. It wasn't that great though :( I pacified myself thinking may be today it is not a great day and was looking forward for the next couple of meals :)


A few statues outside the resort!


Day 2:  We got up early in the morning and got ready for the adventure in Cancun at the resort. We had our breakfast at Toscana which is an Italian restaurant. Unfortunately, I am no Italian food lover. After having breakfast, we headed out to the Aqua water park. Actually, it was raining heavily when we were heading near the pool. But in no time, the weather became sunny and shiny! The person in charge of the pool and facilities turned the rides ON for us and he let us in.  We had a great time at the pool. After having fun at the pool, we started to head to the beach! On the beach, we did Jet ski for the first ever time !!! Oh My God, it was so scary! I was super scared sitting with Manoj! He drove like crazy :(( I swear'ed to myself that I will never go to any water sports until I have learnt swimming after this trip. He is amazing at how he rode the jet ski :) I will never sit behind him again until I know swimming :'( [Unfortunately, I dont have any pictures from jetskiing as I was dead scared.]

Toscana, the Italian restaurant!



We tried various different types of cocktails in the resort. After the Jet ski, we had Dirty monkey and Mudslide on the beach. We also played with Anaya with the sand and tried to make castle with her toys :) Once again, we made manoj a mermaid ;) On the same day in the evening, we went to watch the Mayans show and it's called X-calacoco! I love the name but I really didn't understand anything in the show .. they were talking in spanish and I didn't really get what they were doing :( We called it a day after having dinner. Before sleeping, Manoj and I went over the books in the room about the Mayan civilizations and their culture and their history and the places to visit near by. This really helped us a lot for the next set of shows that we watched the following days.

Day 3: On the third day, we got up early in the morning and were contemplating if we should do the resort tour. We were not sure if it was worth it. Finally, we decided to do the tour. And it was no longer that we realized that we were wasting our time. This guy was trying to sell us the membership and he did not even catch our slightest interest on being a member ;) I think the timeshare presentations we attended in Hawaii were far more catchy then this guy was offering us! Never mind, we wrapped up the meeting as soon as we could and headed to do the Cenotes in the resort itself. Unfortunately, I did not get into the water this time. But, I took some really good pictures :)




After the Cenotes, we had some quick lunch and we wanted to head out of the resort. After all we had come so far to explore as much as we can in this short period of time. So, we decided to go to Akamul beach. And yeah we did snorkeling there! It was my second experience with Snorkeling :) And as usual it took me a while to get used to water. After a lot of effort, Manoj and bhaiya were successful to pull me in water. But I got comfortable in water only when it was time to head back. I guess I need a solid training for swimming :'( All my trips are getting spoiled only because I am so scared of getting into the water. So, next time, I will only go to a beach destination after I have learnt swimming :) On the same day after covering Akamul beach, we headed out to Tulum, but unfortunately it was closed for entry. No worries, we had covered a lot of things for the day and it was time to head back and have some Japanese/Hibachi food at the resort :) We went to El-Templo for dinner after getting back. Here are some pictures from that night !







We had a very interesting dinner that night. The cook showed us some of his cooking skills/stunts and they were mind blowing. They were so amazing that I missed to take any of his pictures doing that. I guess I have to go back to Hibachi restaurant to capture the stunts :)

Here are few pictures that I took in the resort:


A small snow man in our room waiting for us to get back!





Ganesha in one of the resort restaurant! 


Entrance of Sandos!


Cafe in the resort


Bike rental place !



Another small elephant waiting for us to get back in our room :)



~Stay tuned for more to come!