Happy Birthday Greg!

Greg promises that at some point, he'll post again. Really, he will. But for now you have me.

We had a fun time Thursday evening for Greg's birthday. About 20 people came over for dinner, American-style time. As in, the party was from 6:30-10 (way early for Indian dinner), and most everyone was here by 7. Of course, most everyone was American, and to those who weren't I noted that we had work the next morning, so we really were serious about the time :)

It's very easy to host a party when Sarwary is there to cook! She cooked up some chicken and veg biyrani (roughtly Indian fried rice), some muttar paneer (ie, my homemade cheese and peas), and some mirchi-ka-sala (a peanut and pepper sauce to eat with the biyrani or on its own) and chapatti (bread). And she chopped up watermellon and fresh mangos (yum!). I made a bean and veggie salad, adapted from my sister in law's recipe for locally available food. We ordered some samosas and also gulab jamon (donut holes in rose water syrup) for desert - Greg followed his personal tradition of requesting a non-cake for dessert.

In any case, I talked about it all with Sarwary, she cooked some on Wednesday (chopped the fruit and the mirchi-ka-sala) and the rest on Thursday. We came home from work, I put out all the food she prepared and, voila!, party in motion. Everyone had a great time and thought Greg's "birthday gulab jamon" was kind of funny, but, hey, it's his birthday.

William had a great time, too, with two little girls over to play and some many adults paying attention to him. He stayed up until 9 (an hour later than usual) when he looked at me and Sarwary and said, "Sarwary, bed!" And to sleep he went. He also mastered saying, "Happy Birthday Dada!" which he repeated for two days any time he saw the candles.