2011 in retrospect

Posted on January 6, 2012 | 10 comments

I was just thinking how quickly a year goes by. Actually I can’t even recall a decade sometimes. It feels like just yesterday that I left Nepal to come to Australia and that was more than a decade ago. I still remember the time in Tribhuvan International Airport, in Kathmandu where I stood for the last time with my friends and family before I took a flight to come to this new place. It seems funny when I  think of it now that I had 40+ people there to bid me farewell. I had my parents, my brother, my aunties, my uncles, my cousins ( with the little ones crying ), my friends from school (among them was AS, my husband who had no idea at that time that he would marry me one day) and a few other friends . If I think about it now I feel happy that there were so many nice people in my life who cared about me and came to see me off. Time just flies and life goes by. I just want to take a moment and reflect on my year 2011 today.

The year started with AS and me being together for our first New Year celebration. It was really a wonderful experience to have him in my life, living together and planning our life together. I am so sure now that was what I was missing before he came to my life again. I just loved the feeling of togetherness and unconditional love we have for each other. Even though we have lots of adjustments to make in our individual lives to be with each other, it all seemed like worthy sacrifice when I look at it from this point of view.

I think the first half of my year I was just busy planning for the next stage of our life, our wedding. There were so many ups and downs in the planning. There were stages where I was so frustrated with people that I thought the wedding wasn’t happening as I wanted it to happen. And there were those highs when we talked to our parents about the wedding and saw all their excitement in the preparation of the wedding. Even thinking about it now has my head spinning. All I was thinking about was my dresses, wedding venues, photographer, decorations, food and the list keeps growing longer. It was basically a never-ending list of things to do which only ended after the wedding.  I think all is well if it ends well. So this year I became MRS from MISS.

Also our honeymoon to Vietnam was the highlight of this year. It was a great place to just relax and see beautiful places.  Wonderful memories are flooding my brain now 🙂 . I think June 2011 was the best time of my life so far and will always be in my memory as one of the most important time of my life.

I also got a new family this year i.e. my in-laws. It is really nice to have more people who care about you and look after you. I am really happy that my MIL, FIL and BILs are great people who have accepted me in their home as their own. I feel lucky that we get along well together and now I have a new family who will have a big part in my future. I have lots of cousins from his family side who called me sister-in-law (I feel so old when they call me that but I need to get used to it 🙂 )

Last year, one of my cousins got married and one of my good friends got married too. Both ceremonies took place in Nepal so I missed it but I am really happy to see them happily married to the love of their lives.

Two of my cousins had babies this year. Both had a baby boy and they are growing up so fast. They are in the US so I haven’t had a chance to meet them yet but I just love all their photos in Facebook. Hope I get to meet them soon.

Also two of my friends had December babies, a boy and a girl as I wrote in a post. They are just cute, adorable, beautiful babies.

I learnt to cook in 2011. Last year me and AS started living together on our own so I didn’t have much choice but to learn how to cook a few simple meals as surviving on take away was impossible.  I suprised myself that I can cook some good meals and follow recipes to have something decent on the plate. I should probably say that I became a responsible woman from a headstrong girl 🙂

Also in 2011, for the first time in our lives, both of us fasted together for a Puja ceremony in Nepal before our wedding. I was so glad that AS joined the bandwagon of fasting at my house where my mum had organised a big Puja to bless our wedding. It was kind of nice to see him support me in the traditional aspect of our life.

I managed to tick a few items off my bucket list as well. We travelled to New Zealand, Vietnam and Vanuatu so my list of placed to visit have shrunk a bit. I can cross abseiling and black water rafting off my list as well.

How can I forget to mention that in 2011 I started blogging too?  Nepaliaustralian was born in September 2011 and has been growing since then. I think it is one of the good decisions I ever made. It has given me a platform to share my ideas, thoughts and rant sometimes about the issues and topics that has affected my life. I also got to meet really nice people who share similar opinions and I got to read their blogs filled with creative ideas. Thank you everyone for making me feel welcome in this blogosphere.  Also thank you to those who awarded me various awards . I am honoured to receive 7 awards last year.

There were a few bad news last year. My aunty was diagnosed with breast cancer which is a first in both sides of the family. It was kind of shock to everyone but she is getting a treatment right now and it looks good and she is recovering well. Just want her to be normal soon.

My best friend’s dad passed away and I feel bad that I was not with her when she needed me. I am glad she had her family and her fiancé with her at that time. Hope to meet her soon.

It seems like so much has happened but at the same time I feel that everything happened yesterday. I hope 2012 has lots of good thing in store for me and I want to live this year happily without worrying about stuff that I have no control over (like I always do).

Wishing all of you a great 2012 and hope this year all your wishes come true. Be happy everyone!!!

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Indulgence

Posted on January 5, 2012 | 6 comments

One of the good things while on holiday is that you don’t have to think about what you are eating. First of all, you don’t have to cook and on top of that you can order whatever you want from the menu. No dieting and no stress.  I just want to share some photos of food that I loved while on my last holiday.

 

While in Vanuatu, we found out that coconut crab and lobster were really cheap there compared to Sydney. The crab was $40 and lobster $20. You would never get that here so we enjoyed it all in Vanuatu.

And then after coming back to Sydney, we went for a big lunch to Pancake On The Rocks and indulged on pork ribs and chicken crepes followed by chocolate and orange pancake.  We had ice tea and cold mocha as well. I really don’t know how we ate it all but I remember it was very yummy 🙂

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Posted in Foodie

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Babies are born!!!

Posted on January 4, 2012 | 20 comments

If you remember a while ago I wrote a post (I see babies everywhere) that two of my good friends were pregnant. I am happy to announce that both of them gave birth to beautiful babies.

SK had her baby girl before Christmas. The baby was quite big, 4.9 kg. She looked so adorable in her hospital gown. She looked like she was already a few months old but she was only five days old when I went to meet SK. I am in so much in love with her already. She has lots of hair, small eyes and long fingers and toes. While we were in the hospital she didn’t cry at all. She just looked at us and made funny noises moving her arms and legs. I can’t wait to see her in her little pink dress I bought for her. Girls are so easy to buy for as there are millions of choices. They named her SS and here are some beautiful photos of her.

 

Little SS

When I was talking to SK about the birth I was a bit scared to hear what she had to go through.

As the baby was overdue, they induced her to start the labour. They gave her a drip which she said was painful. As she started to have pain, little SS’s heart rate became really high so they decided to do caesarean. It was a last-minute decision but very good one as the baby was big and natural birth was near impossible. Anyway after the birth SK was still in pain. It was a major surgery and it will take her a few weeks to recover. I am so glad she has her parents, brother and sister-in-law there along with her husband who look after her and little SS.

RD had a baby boy last week and they named him AD. He looks so cute and weighs 4.28 kg. RD was also overdue so they had to induce her as well. She spent 2 days in hospital before she had the baby.  She was complaining how she had to be in labour for 7 hours before they decided to have a caesarean.  Lucky for her, her husband and her mum were there every minute to look after her. Here are some beautiful photos of adorable AD.

Little AD

Both moms are super happy and now back home with their buds. They both said they would not have it any other way. Guess the joy of motherhood is beyond comparison.

For me I have two more babies in my life who will call me aunty.  It is such a joy to be around kids and looking at them made me love them more.

 I am sure there will be more posts around these babies in the future.

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Posted in Friends

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Welcoming 2012

Posted on January 1, 2012 | 6 comments

I am finally back in Sydney after our nice break. We had an early morning flight leaving Vanuatu so I was sleepy the whole flight. When we landed in Sydney airport, I felt good that I was in Sydney just in time to celebrate New Year.

2011 was one of the best years for me as it was the first New Year celebration that AS was by my side to start the year together. I wanted to do something special for AS so I had bought a cruise ticket to watch the fireworks in front of Harbour Bridge and Opera house. They say Sydney’s fireworks are one of the best in the world so I wanted to be sure that we got the best seats in the house.

After Skyping with our family and having lunch, we headed to the city. As soon as we were in the train I could see that it was going to be a very crowded few hours. We got off at Circular Quay to catch our boat. There were thousands of people every where. I had not seen that many people at one place for a long time. We went to our pick up area and saw that there was a long queue to board the boat. We joined the queue and we were escorted on to our boat.

Once we were in the boat, I saw that they had a live band playing beautiful songs. There were around a 100+ people but there was enough room for us to walk around and pick the best seats. We decided to stay on the outside top deck. After everyone was aboard, our boat moved towards the open water and stopped in between Harbour Bridge and Opera House.

AS was armed with his DSLR camera so when the countdown began for New Year 2011, the camera was clicking as fast as it could. I think we had almost 1000 photos for that night alone and most of them were of the fireworks. It was a beautiful display of colourful fireworks. The atmosphere was so alive that I was sorry the celebration ended after just 25 minutes. There were so many boats in the water that I was glad I was among them  and so close to see the amazing show.

This year, it was a different story. As it was the last day of 2011 and I had so many things I needed to do but I was too tired (read lazy) after our holiday to do them so my New Year 2012 resolution will be to tie up all the loose ends this month. Also I will try to eat healthy and work out regularly along with AS. I also want to be a better human being and try to be less selfish with my needs 🙂

Last evening, we met up with a few friends and my brother and headed to Brighton Le Sands to watch the fireworks because the city is always too crowded for the New Year’s fireworks. Of course there were many people in Brighton Le Sands as well but we managed to get to the front of the beach and watch the amazing fireworks from there. Even though the fireworks may not have been as spectacular as the one in the city, it was still breath-taking and the crowd too was just awesome. The best part was we could walk back home after the celebrations.

This year too AS was armed with his camera and he got beautiful shots of the display and obviously some beautiful shots of me as well with the fireworks in the background 😀 .

The theme of 2012 was “Time to Dream”, capturing the imagination and giving hope.

Happy New Year from Sydney, everyone. May the beginning of the New Year be the beginning of great things to come the whole year through and may the New Year be filled with wonderful adventures and many successes!!!

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Posted in Australia

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Happy Birthday AS!

Posted on December 30, 2011 | 9 comments

It was AS’s birthday on December 28. As we were on holiday, I didn’t know what to do for his birthday. Before we left for the  holiday, I had contacted the resort we were staying in Vanuatu and asked them if they could bake a cake for me. I was happy when they emailed me back confirming that they could. I tried my best to make it a secret until his birthday. It was really hard to get away from him to talk to the staff there. I also hid his card and gifts in my suitcase. I am so glad he didn’t find them until his birthday.

On the morning of the 28th, I couldn’t sleep as there were thousands of things in my mind. I woke up at 5 am and started planning for his surprise birthday. As we had booked to go for Abseiling at 9am, I needed to execute my plan before 9 am. So I went to talk to the staff to plan everything while AS was still in bed.

As normal, we went to the resort’s restaurant for breakfast. He ordered a big breakfast and I ordered a continental breakfast with fruits. I had instructed the staff to get the cake before we had our breakfast. We were seated by the pool and there were a few  other tables with holiday makers having their breakfast.

I was facing the walk way and AS has his back to it. So when the waiter came with the cake, he didn’t see it at first. I started singing the “Happy Birthday” song and AS thought it was someone else’s birthday so he started singing as well before he turned around and saw the cake and realised that the cake was for him. In the mean time everyone else at the other tables started singing Happy Birthday for him.

I really liked the surprised look on his face after seeing the cake. It was his favourite flavour, double chocolate mud cake. I couldn’t get one any smaller but I was really glad to see it turn out so good. It was just perfect. Then he made a wish and cut the cake. One of the guests was really nice and offered to take some photos of the both of us.

Then it was time to open his gifts. I got him a card, an android tablet and a UFC trainer game for his XBOX. I knew he wanted them so I am glad that he liked them all. He had this big grin on his face that made me really happy.

Then we had our breakfast and went for Abseiling (I will write about this later when I am back in Sydney). It was one of the most fun things we did in Vanuatu.

We came back to the resort to change and were off to the Melanesian dinner (local Vanuatu style dinner with cultural dance show). We really enjoyed the food and dance.

It was a perfect celebration for AS. I was really happy that he enjoyed his day so much.

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Posted in General, Personal

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