We don’t have much of an update this week, so the majority of this email is about Claire!

Friday night we headed out to the Alankrata resorts for Kenexa India's New Year's party. We knew the night was going to be great when it started off with a 15 minute drive across town (this usually takes about 45 minutes). For those of you who know Hyderabad, I'm talking from past Hi tech city (Kothaguda) all the way through Secunderabad, in 15 minutes, wow! You want to know how? We were right in front of a political person's caravan. In Hyderabad (I'm assuming in other cities also) they block traffic for any "important" person driving through town. I don't know at what level you have to be to get this kind of service, our driver tells us it's the equivalent of a mayor and above. We have gotten stopped by this in the negative direction several times, but this time we felt like kings driving in front of them (it was us, a military jeep, police jeep, then the SUV caravan). What they do is post a police officer about every 100 feet along the path where the dignitary will drive. Then they radio ahead saying the person is coming. From there the police stop every car from getting in their way. Sweet.

Anyway, back to the New Year's bash. So we arrive and after a few minutes several individuals start organizing some games. They played "dumbcharades" which to us is charades. They also played a game called cavardi (sp?) where you have 2 teams with a line in between. Each team takes turns sending a member to the other side, this individual must repeat the word "cavardi" over and over while touching a member of the opposite team and return to his or her original side without being tackled. They also played a bit of tug of war, 2 boys only and 1 girl’s only game. I attached a picture of Clay doing a mighty fine job of officiating the tug of war competition.

Some of the girls in the office performed a dance to Hindi music on the stage that was really cool. Then another co-worker (Sumit) sang 2 songs acapella (sp?), very cool also. During Sumit’s second song, Claire ran up the aisle, up the stairs to the stage, turned around and started dancing. It was hilarious. This was totally unprompted; I actually had just told her to come with me so we could put some mosquito repellant on. Of course she ran the other way and ended up on stage. She made the best of it. I thought she would get up there, turn around and see 200 people staring at her then get down. I underestimated her willingness to perform, evidently. We video taped the excitement and will show it to interested parties upon our return.

The rest of the evening was full of eating and dancing. It was certainly a night to remember.

Wednesday night we went to a grand opening for a much needed coffee shop near the office.

Thursday was India’s Republic Day which is a national holiday. Claire made a cool Indian flag in school on Wednesday which we have proudly hanging in our apartment. She keeps pointing to the middle of the flag and saying, “purple dinosaur.” We have absolutely no idea where that is coming from, but I’m sure it makes sense to her. On the ride home from school that day, she called Clay and said, “Daddy pag!” Meaning, daddy, I made a flag in school today (I had to translate that part for him).

Speaking of Claire funnies….

Conversations with Claire:
Mom-"Claire, how old are you going to be in April?"
Claire-"Five" (no hesitation)

Mom-"Claire, did you meet any new friends at school today?"
Claire-"Yep"
Mom-"What were their names?"
Claire-"Um...Claire"
The next day I asked the same question, this was her response:
“Um…Simba”
I think someone has The Lion King on their mind!

On the way up to our apartment after school this week, Claire noticed a broom sitting on the floor outside the elevator. Of course, she couldn’t resist picking it up. So she started sweeping, and sweeping, and sweeping. Then, out of no where, some random guy comes up, takes the broom away and says, “No, no, bad, bad.” I sure hope that she doesn’t remember that experience when we get home and we hand her a broom to sweep the kitchen floor.

Grandma Joyce is on her way to India next week, yeah!!!