Highlights from November

Noah is obsessed with trains. He has many train sets around the house and trains to drive on the tracks. Thomas is his favorite and he enjoys watching the movies as well. I'm not really sure if I like the Thomas stories or not. The trains are always fighting and teasing each other. Sometimes they make up in the end, but I'm not really clear as to what message the children are supposed to learn. They all seem kind of bratty to me. Anyhow, I never knew that we had so much railway history here in the Twin Cities. A couple of Noah's favorite places in the model train museum in Bandana Square in St. Paul. http://www.tcmrm.org/ It has a huge model train set up and running that duplicates what the railroads were like in the Twin Cities during the 30's, 40's and 50's. Noah could watch those trains go by for hours and it's funny because Anisha actually enjoys watching it as well.

The other place that we found is the Jackson Street Roundhouse in St. Paul. It has actual train cars that kids can play in, train sets that the kids can play with and a little gift shop with, of course, Thomas and Friends toys. The best part of this museum is the caboose ride. Noah was pretty excited about riding in a real train car, but he wasn't so fond of the noise.


John is still at Boston Scientific in a management position and I'm sure you have heard about all the layoffs. His job is safe for now but it requires a lot more of his time and he has been traveling quite extensively lately. While this has been a little rough for the family, he has been fortunate enough to see some exciting places. He spent a week in Japan during the month of November which turned out to be perfect timing because Noah's school has been studying Japan this month as well. There was lots of material for show and tell. I'm jealous of all the fabulous sushi he got to eat. There is link to his photos on the left.

This was Anisha's first Thanksgiving and we were spent it at the Mitra's house, close friends of the family. Noah had a blast playing with his cousins, Natalie and Nicholas. Anisha had fun too, but she is at the age where strangers and large crowds are a bit overwhelming, so she stuck close by me most of the night.



A couple of days later, we went to the Mustaphi's house to celebrate the engagement of Rai and Scott (finally!). We had a lot of fun catching up with everyone and we are looking forward to another exciting wedding-reunion! Although we will have to wait until 2009...