Travel Along With Me

This afternoon we received a wonderful gift from our friends Peter and Sara - two Cherry Trees!

For 2 or 3 summers now they have allowed me the pleasure of picking the sour cherries that grow on the trees in their front yard. It is such a wonderful, simple pleasure to climb up in the trees, pick the cherries and put them in a bucket (and eat some as I go). The kids enjoy helping me as well - I think they like the climbing in the tree part the best.

I use the cherries to make pies, cobblers or to have as a snack. I share them and I freeze some to use throughout the year.

Anyway, with a lot of joy we brought two small Cherry Trees home today (they are sort of intertwined - Peter said it represented Tilak and I) to plant in our back yard. Immediately when we returned home the kids and I found the place that we wanted to plant the trees. They made a deal with me that they would dig the hole to plant the trees if I would do their chore of “poop scooping” the back yard. I agreed.

The kids worked very diligently to make a perfect hole. Once we finished getting the hole just right we put some of our compost material in it and we put the tree down in the hole made with love. Kali was talking to the tree saying “I hope that you will be happy here in our yard”. Texil said he would “take good care of it”. We had a lot of fun with the planting of our new trees. When we were finished Kali placed a heart-shaped rock that she had found on our hike today at the base of the trees.

Oh, the simple pleasures in life! There is nothing like it!

Texil and Kali decided to perform in this year’s Talent/Variety Show at their school. Kali participated last year and wanted to do it again this year. Texil decided if Kali can do it so could he! They have two totally different personalities when it comes to performing in front of people. Kali has a lot less fear and seems to really enjoy herself. Texil has a lot of fear about performing in front of a lot of people especially ones he does not know well.

This year Kali sang a High School Musical song entitled “I Gotta Go My Own Way”. Texil decided to play a song on his wooden Indian Flute (he made it up). I was busting with pride watching the two of them on stage! For Texil, I was thrilled that it all went well for him (i.e. he did not get too nervous and freeze up or play wrong notes which would send him into a panic). Look at his face at the end of the attached performance. You can see his relief and pride of a job well done! I was front and center in the audience and he threw his hat to his adoring fan (me!). With Kali’s performance attached you can see her go out on the stage with confidence. She has not quite learned to get the audience involved with her performance yet but she LOVES to be on center stage. At the end of her performance she throws her scarf she was wearing into the crowd. This was her idea. Very cute. The video unfortunately did not capture this.

It was a fun night. I hope you enjoy watching their show!!!