“Live and work but do not forget to play, to have fun in life and really enjoy it.” -Eileen Caddy

Post by: Beth

Hi everyone! Long time, no post... No real surprise since we're doing much less traveling and much more working here in New York, but I did want to share some photos from the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade that marched its way through Times Square on the way to Macy's at 34th Street! Since it was our first Thanksgiving here and Mom was visiting, we decided to go see the parade in person. I hope you enjoy seeing the in-person pictures of what we all love to watch on TV each Thanksgiving (the parade.. not football.. just in case anyone needed any clarification...) :) It was so great to take a break from the work and chaos that has been our moving/settling in process, and just relax and have a fun holiday weekend!

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate." - Oprah

Post by: Raja

As promised, here I am to follow up on Beth's birthday post. Dinner at Isola was wonderful: good food, good friends, good conversation covering everything from Indian/American/Latino cultures to our views on Barbie dolls.

There was even a surprise Tiramisu in honor of Beth's birthday at the end!


Azure was also very fun.. Lots of laughing, dancing, and lively chatter. We did manage to sit down all together long enough for one photo, at least.


You don't get a sense of the great views from Isola and Azure from these pictures, so that is a shame, but at least you DO get a sense of how great a time we had with our friends that night! Thanks to all our friends in other parts of the world that sent Beth birthday wishes... It helped make her birthday this year one to remember.

"There was a star danced, and under that was {she} born." - William Shakespeare

Post by: Raja
Surprise - I am back for another blog post! Today is Beth's birthday so I thought I'd post a little something on the blog to 1) give her a little break from all the blogging she's done lately 2) wish her a happy birthday via the interweb (I already did it in person...two is better than one, right?) and 3) update all of our (her) readers about what we have planned for this weekend. Also, this post better prompt some comments to wish Beth a Happy Birthday...I've been disappointed with the lack of comments from our readers....although... I've also been disappointed with my lack of posts for our readers. Let's just all make a clean start today, ok?

First, the birthday celebrations. We were planning to go away to the Philippines for the weekend, but some last minute work stuff came up and we weren't able to go (hopefully we can still plan the trip for another weekend). In lieu of a fun-filled weekend at the beach, Beth decided that she'd like to take advantage of some of the great restaurants and nightlife that HK has to offer and share the experience with some of our close friends here in HK. We're going to go to a restaurant called Isola first which is located in the IFC building in Central. It is an Itallian restaurant and is supposed to be reeaally good and have some stunning views of the HK harbour. You can check it out here. I'll post some pics and some comments about the place tomorrow (I know...it's the gift that keeps on giving!).

After dinner, Beth's Birthday Entourage will be heading to Lan Kwai Fong to go to...you guessed it... Hotel LKF (for our less astute readers: LKF = Lan Kwai Fong)! Specifically, we'll be going to the rooftop bar, Azure. We came here once before and Beth really liked it - it has good music, places to dance and places to sit, and best of all (for her) they serve Chocolate Martinis just like we used to get from our good friend Andrea at Pepper Lounge in STL (side note...If you ever go to STL, you should visit Pepper Lounge in downtown - great place). You can check out Azure here.

Sunday brings us to maybe the most exciting part of the birthday weekend. For Beth's birthday, she decided that she wanted to get a new handbag. Who am I to stand in the way? She's been looking for a handbag for quite a while, and unfortunately, she just hasn't been able to find one that she absolutely loved. Actually, I take that back. She did find one she loved, but the price tag and my Visa card weren't playing nice so we had to leave one behind...the handbag got the boot. Instead of continuing to look for the perfect handbag, we decided to make the perfect handbag come to us! There is a little store that we ran across a while back called "Zee's Leather" in TST that makes custom handbags and shoes, so we're going to pay them a visit and see if they can make Beth's dream bag. I bet they can and I bet that will make Beth very happy. Score one for Husbands who find and deliver the perfect gift!


Well, those are the big things happening this weekend for Beth's birthday. I hope she likes it and I hope all of you enjoyed hearing about it. Like I said, I'll make some follow-up posts so you can see exactly how the food was at Isola, what kind of place Azure really is, and whether Mr. Zee is actually able to put together the perfect handbag. I know...it's a cliffhanger.


P.S. Since this post is largely a preview of the weekend's activities, I don't have any great pictures to post. Instead, and in an attempt not to make this post boring and just all text, you get random pictures of things the Beth and I like. Enjoy!

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." -Vincent Van Gogh

Post by: Beth

Raja had told me fairly early on before we left for this trip that he'd picked a special restaurant for us to eat at for our anniversary. I usually can't help doing secret research or requesitng hints about "surprises," but being REALLY excited about Dubai, I went along with it and didn't ask any questions or try to figure it out. I knew the date, the time to be ready, and that's it.



So Saturday night we climb into the taxi and Raja tells the driver where to go -- He's specifically picked an area AROUND the restaurant as the destination, rather than giving the actual restaurant name. I'm still oblivious and we happily ride along, about 20 minutes, to our destination. We are let out at a huge hotel called "Madinat Al Qsar" and its gorgeous. The bottom floor of the hotel is made up of high-end Arabian home decor stores, which houses amazing (and amazingly expensive!!) decor products. We wind through the bottom, peeking in stores and looking all around. Finally we get to a door that leads to a path outside, with a stream running along the pathway. A golf cart is waiting for us, and we get in and zoom along the pathway about 5 more minutes, until we're let off at the end of a huge pier. I can't quite make out what's at the end of the pier, but just slightly to the right of whatever building is at the end, "floats" the Burj Al Arab. I've seen plenty of pictures of this 7-star hotel that's designed in the form of a sailboat, but they just can't compare to seeing it in person. I'm REALLY excited by this point, as there's only one way we can go at this point, and that pier is going to be right in line with the Burj Al Arab.


We walk down the pier, and I see the sign of the restaurant: "Pierchic." We're taken to our table, which sits right along the side of the man-made island, and waves roll right up to the under-side of the restaurant, where our table is. I discover from the menu that it's mainly a seafood restaurant, and there are lots of things I can't pronounce, and some of them I'm not even sure what they are. With a little help, I make my decision and we order our salads and dinners. The food is amazing, and the scenery around us is gorgeous. I don't think I've ever been in a "prettier" spot in my life.


The night was wonderful and I didn't want to leave at the end, but I was really happy that I didn't spoil the surprise by asking questions and begging for hints. I think the next time a "surprise" is in the works, I'll remember this and be content to let it play out as the surprise it should be. :)

Below: The pier we were walking down to get to the restaurant. The hotel you see here is the one we walked through to get to the golf cart, then drove through to get to the pier.

Below: We just sat down to dinner. You can't see very well behind us because the setting isn't set properly yet, but the Burj Al Arab is just behind me, in the upper left corner of the photo.
Below: Behind Raja, you can see another shot of the hotel we walked through to get to the pier. Below: water under the restaurant Below: Burj Al Arab... the lighting changes from purple to teal to pink, etc. Actually really pretty in person.

Below: Another view from our table. I just happily turned and snapped photos all thorugh dinner.. It was impossible not to!
I'm aware I have 70 photos of this hotel, but it's just too pretty!
And you guessed it.. more surprise cake! This was a mousse cake -- really light and fluffy! Diet was officially in "off" mode during this trip, in case you hadn't noticed. ;)

Above & Below: We stopped and took some pictures on the way back through the hotel grounds after dinner. You can't really see it in this photo (again), since the setting for night portraits and setting for buildings are different, but the Burj Al Arab is back there behind each of us in these photos.

Post by: Beth

Just a few quick pics from our arrival into Dubai.

The Dubai airport is pristine.. It's much different from any airport I've been in before... Everything is white, shiny, and sparkly. It's also strangely quiet in the terminals and baggage areas; we found ourselves whispering and so as not to disturb the peace. The baggage belts are soundless... the luggage carts glide smoothly and noiselessly across the floor... and the security points are quick and efficient. It was quite a change from the cacophony that is Bombay's airport! ;)

Below are some pictures from our hotel, which is positioned in the new area of Dubai. There are new hotels everywhere and there are so many new buildings being constructed. We were conveniently located across the street from "The Dubai Mall," and right in the middle of many restaurants and area attractions.

Below are some pictures from the pool area at the hotel, and the view surrounding the pools.

Since our 1-year anniversary is only about a week away, we used this trip to celebrate that. It's a tiny bit early, but a holiday Monday meant an off-day for Raja, plus the Dubai Shopping Festival is going on now. Raja had a couple surprises arranged for the trip, starting with a cake and fruit basket delivered to our room on our first night. Yummy!

More to come soon from our Dubai trip... :) Hope everyone is well!

More laughter than tears...

Post by: Beth

I got to spend the day yesterday with my grandmother, mom, cousin, and little cousin. Casey is my big cousin, and is Alex’s (little cousin) mom. Alex is approaching 6 years old, and is a ball of energy and a lot of fun. Casey and Alex had spent the night at Granny’s the night before – Casey and I (and the rest of the grandkids) used to spend the night at Granny and Paw-Paw’s a lot when we were little, and it’s important that the great grandchildren get to have the same experience of spending the night over there. I have great memories of painting with Granny when I was younger, watching Paw-Paw do his woodworking, and hearing Granny and Paw-Paw banter playfully back and forth. I can’t count the number of times I remember hearing Granny start talking (she likes to talk a lot and for a long time – she’s extremely “personable”) and I’d hear Paw-Paw say “Hold on, Betty.. Let me turn down my hearing aid” when he got tired of hearing her talk so much. She always just kept talking, completely undeterred.

It’s always a little different to go to their house now since Paw-Paw died about a year and a half ago. It’s great to see Granny there, and important to be there to remember the fun times, but it’s always a little different now and everyone seems to be aware that something is missing. One of the special things since Paw-Paw’s death has been to learn how everyone in the family holds different memories of him. Each member of the family came over after his death and took home something that was special to them and reminded them of Paw-Paw, and the variety of items that meant “Paw-Paw” was extremely wide and represented many different aspects of his personality. With Granny,
as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to really listen to her (no matter how much she talks ;) and that she really has some pretty wise things to say every once in a while. She also has some pretty funny things to say once in a while, and while our family isn’t quite the same without Paw-Paw, we’re so fortunate to still have Granny holding it together in her own funny ways. Since Paw-Paw’s death, she’s definitely had her moments where she gets really lonely… She does usually end up in tears for a few minutes at least once during our visits… but she also still whips out some really funny things about Paw-Paw, and they are what truly reminds me of Paw-Paw and Granny together. Yesterday was one of those times.

Alex was just old enough when Paw-Paw was still in good health to form many memories of him and to know what Paw-Paw was all about. One of the games Paw-Paw always played with her was to hide a big inflatable ball somewhere in the house every time she came over to visit, and Alex would always search for the ball and eventually find it, and he’d hide it again and the game would continue on and on that way. It turns out that this is one of Alex’s ways she “remembers” Paw-Paw and what he meant to her. I’m not sure if Granny hid the ball again before Alex came to visit this past time, or if it was just lying somewhere, but Alex “found” it, regardless. Much to her dismay, the ball had lost some if it’s air and was pretty flat, and this had never happened before while Paw-Paw was alive because he’d always re-inflate it and keep it perfectly round for her. So yesterday when she found the ball, she ran to Granny all in a tizzy as only a 5-year old can, and cried out that Paw-Paw left without blowing her ball up again. So Granny has 2 choices here: Obviously this is very sad that the 5 year old is upset that Paw-Paw died and her ball is flat and will never be blown up by him again. But as only Granny can, she also has this chance to turn this into a quip that Paw-Paw isn’t here to defend himself against. Without missing a beat, Granny takes on the same indignant look as Alex and says “He left here without finishing a lot of stuff in this house.”

When I heard this, I couldn’t help but laugh that Granny still chides Paw-Paw, even in death. If he was here, he would have had a great witty comeback for her remark. As sad as Granny is that Paw-Paw is gone, she still manages to find humor in some places where you just didn’t realize it was. Those are the times that make me understand that her humor and ability to hold her own with him is probably one of the biggest reasons Paw-Paw loved her so much, and also makes me remember Paw-Paw and Granny how they really were – playful, honest, down-to-earth, but always loving and respecting each other.

Everyone misses Paw-Paw very much, and he left his mark on this family and I have no doubt we’ll carry on his stories and memories for a long time to come. There’s no better catalyst than Granny to help us do that, and as long as she keeps her sense of humor about him, there may still be tears every once in a while, but there will always be more laughter, and that’s exactly how Paw-Paw would want it.

"Let's hold up those glasses again...!!"

Post by: Beth


Yey for birthdays! My birthday was this past Friday, and I'd wanted to do something fun and special for the occasion. As cliche as it is, I REALLY like having fondue for special occasions. It's just something different that we don't do a lot, and there's something fun about controlling what sauce you use with what type of meat, what style cooking oil you use, what kinds of spices are used, and making up fun combinations for the other one to try. So we decided Saturday night would be the night we'd go have fondue. We'd make up our minds pretty early during the week, so we had plenty of time to make reservations for the date and time we wanted... we thought. There's a fondue place right near our loft called "Simply Fondue" and I was pretty excited to try it since it was new to us and looks really pretty inside. Raja started calling on Tuesday to try to make the reservations. He called a couple of times Tuesday, but was unable to get anything but an answering machine. That's not too strange really, because there's a lot of restaurants and lounges in St. Louis that keep odd hours that are hard to figure out. Neither of us were worried. He called again Wednesday and got the answering machine several more times, so decided that must just be one of those businesses that doesn't actually answer the phone half the time. He left a message this time and we still didn't get too concerned. Thursday he tried again... relentlessly.. left another message finally and called me sounding baffled. I knew they were open, because I'd seen people eating dinner in the front of the restaurant Monday night when I'd driven by, so he drove by that night as well. No one was eating in there Thursday night, but again... some businesses here keep really strange hours and it's not unusual to see no pattern at all. Friday while I was at work, he called me and his words were: "I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?" I should have known better because he's used this phrase before and it ended up being ONLY bad news for me, but I went ahead and asked for the good news first. "The good news is that Simply Fondue finally called me back today." "YEY!! I'm so excited!! Did you get us a reservation?!" "The bad news is that they called me back to tell me that they can't serve us because they are closing down the restaurant. For good." As you can imagine, my face fell and the possibility of fondue for my birthday dinner seemed dismal. But Raja had looked up another fondue restaurant and said we could go there if I wanted instead. We'd gone to the "Melting Pot" once in Birmingham so it wasn't as new to us, but I was still excited about fondue so Saturday night at the "Melting Pot" it was!

The experience was great, and I was really glad in the end that we ended up going to that restaurant. The waiter was really nice, the food was so yummy, and the whole experience was just a lot of fun. We had Jamaican jerk sirloin, garlic chicken, teriyaki shrimp, filet mignon, and of course the cheese appetizer dip with apples, veggies, and bread. We also had yummy chocolate with peanut butter as our dessert fondue! Our waiter volunteered to take pictures of us constantly, which was VERY nice of him... but it was really hard not to bust out laughing each time because his phrase was always "Let's hold up those glasses again...!!!" Raja and I obliged because he was so nice and he'd really gone out of his way for us the whole night, but it made for some funny pictures of us half-heartedly posing with our glasses. ;) Here are some pictures from our birthday dinner.

Indian Festivities

Post by: Beth & Raja

Hi everyone! More pictures have arrived and we are so excited to post them.. as usual.. :) There are some really great shots in our "Indian festivities," and we love the work Erin & Corey did. I am SO eager to get some of these and frame them.. They always take pictures of the most interesting things, and we're so happy to play guinea-pig for them as they try out new things. They have such creative ideas and when they push the envelope and try them out, the pictures turn out amazing.
Feel free to take a look and we hope you enjoy! :)
Love,
Beth & Raja

www.erinnolenphotography.com/gupta2

Cruise Photos!

Post by: Beth & Raja
Quick post today because we have a lot of things to do today, but we got our cruise slideshow back from Erin and wanted to post a link here so everyone can see. We LOVE the slideshow and hope you enjoy it as much as we do. :) Erin and Corey did a wonderful job and everytime I watch it, it makes me want to go back and do it all over again.

www.erinnolenphotography.com/gupta

Engagement Pictures

Post by: Beth & Raja

To start off the photos, we wanted to go back just a few weeks ago to our engagement photo session. Beth's cousin, Erin, took these photos off us downtown on Morris Avenue on a gorgeous Saturday while Raja was home for Christmas/New Years. Most of you have probably already seen this link, but we wanted to post it just in case. =) If anyone is curious (I've had several people ask me already), the song is by Matthew Perryman Jones and is called "Meghan's song." Sort of interesting.. it's actually a lullaby he wrote to help his wife sleep. We'd never heard the song before, but think Erin & her husband, Corey, picked the perfect song for this slideshow. It's hauntingly beautiful, and it's just another example of why Corey & Erin are so good at what they do.

http://www.erinnolenphotography.com/bethandraja2

If you want more info on Erin's photography, you can visit her website at http://www.erinnolenphotography.com/ . Corey is also joining her with the full-time photo gig as of lately, so you can check his stuff out at nolenphotography.com . (Just in time.. he did some GREAT shots of us before our Birmingham wedding reception -- We can't wait to see them all!) They also just did our wedding photography, and we will be posting those as we get them. Stay tuned for more photo updates.. =)

Weddings are OVER!

Post by: Beth
Yey for us! The weddings/receptions are finally over and we had such a great time. THANK YOU so much to everyone who came out to be with us during these special times.. We will look back on these memories for many years to come, and it was amazing to have so many of our loved ones around us for such a long time. While we are very happy to have all of the planning done and have the events behind us, we will miss seeing all of our friends & family so often. Between the cruise, all the photo sessions, the parties and receptions, we got to spend so much time with our loved ones, and that's what we're sad to see go. We are so grateful to everyone who helped us plan, kept things going smoothly, and sacrificed of themselves to make us feel so wonderful. Everything from picking up tiny jewels off tables, carting gifts around, straightening centerpieces, affixing 150 crystals to a dress, tracking down golf putters, whipping up egg-less cupcakes, coordinating huge events for so many people.. We cannot thank each of you enough!

Now it's time for us to get back down to reality and get ready for our upcoming move to St. Louis. In exactly 7 days, we should be very close to arriving to our new home. Next Sunday, Raja, Beth & Aidan will be making the drive up to MO, where we will stay in a hotel for 1 week until our condo is ready for us to move into. This week, Raja goes back to Manhattan for training for Rotation #2, and Beth stays in Birmingham to pack and take care of name changes, doctor/dentist appts, one last lunch with her work friends, and all of the miscellaneous things that come along with getting married and moving. We promise to post pictures of our move as it goes along, and will have lots of photos when we finally get settled into the condo. Wish us luck as we get ready for even more changes! :)