Brand Rhea

Have I changed?

An innocuous Gauri comment inspired this 8 hour project.

While my top notch photo organization helped me in a big way, the trick was not to find just another photo (lots of them) or a good Rhea photo (all of them), it was finding a photo that captured the context of her life in that month in that year.

Here I am. The blank cells are a shame on me. If anybody has photos of her for those slots, mail it to me. If you don't have my email id, you wont have her photo either :)

	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Jan	Rhea ...4 months old ... 2 of those in US	Purva Park, Bangalore. The house she came back to as a newborn.. Rhea was sick when this photo was taken	The day it snowed in Redmond...	Still in Pune.The perpetual animal lover ...	Snoqualmie: Skiing...	Abu SImbel, Egypt
Feb	Early signs ...	Sammamish house, taken on Sweety's birthday	This is all I caught of her in that month :) Like all kids, Rhea was very difficult to capture on photo.	Space Needle, Seattle, visiting with Momcy	Seattle Aquarium. Spirit accompanying	The Egypt trip photo fatigue sets in . I seem to have taken NO photos for 4 months !
Mar		Rhea used to  love the open space behind the house in Sammamish	Courtesy Mayank during his visit us with his mom (Mrs. Usha Desai) who works with Momcy		Aai's birthday with Abhay in town
Apr	Learned to turn on her stomach ..	Her first Tulip festival	Getting ready to garden. Aai-Baba's first visit to US. She also toured SFO, LA, SD, LV in this month	Getting ready for her first day at La Petite	Sunil's birthday at Winthrop, WA
may	Greenlake Park , starting to sit up	Brat !	Savoy restaurant in  Redmond with Anagha, and Abhay celebrating Prabha maushi and Bhai's wedding anniversary.	Getting the master bedroom in order...	Shaniwarvada. Pune Her third visit to India and her first without Mama	Pratapgad, India Her fourth visit to India, this time again without Mama
Jun	Her first dip in the pool. She did not like it much...	Started to use her tricycle	Farmer's market in Redmond	Anand's place, Sammamish, WA	Mama's new bug	Her first graduation
July	Crater lake, Oregon. Rhea's first road trip. She was not the best of travelers in those days ...	Microsoft Company picnic	A bright summer afternoon on Kirkland waterfront	Helping with the garden in Redmond, WA	The eternal free bird... Crystal Mountain, WA	On the river tail .. Her first cycle fall ..
Aug		Fascinated by "Nemo" at the Seattle Aquarium	Her first complete Lincoln Logs house	Kirkland waterfront, Aai's second trip	Redmond Town Center	Snake museum in Sultan.  Holding a baby python
Sept	At her birthday party...	Yellow Stone National Park	Vancouver, BC, Canada	Butchart Garden, Victoria, BC when Sweety  was here...	Rattlesnake hill hike with Annett and Rick	On the train to Puno, Peru
Oct	Comfortable walker ...	New Redmond house...	Second trip to India. A long one as Gayu was over in India for a 4 month training. Here with Siddhu's football championship	Attitude is everything ... getting ready to leave for Khushi's birthday party	Sahil's party	Amazonia, Peru The piranhas are scared of her ...
Nov	Diwali party at Redmond, Ridge	Even Energizer bunnies sleep... Her first Halloween. Lioness she was ..	Amit's wedding, Pune. Loves festivities and people around her	Getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner at Kelly's	No school today - it snowed in Redmond...
Dec	Vilu Maushi's farmhouse during her first India trip. All she was interested in were the goats and the chicken.	Watching either Ice Age or Nemo with rapt attention. Those were her favorites then	Kolhapur, the very same step of the house her papa sat 22 years ago.	She saw Zoro and was fascinated enough to get  me to handcraft her a mask.  Here she is in full battle regalia ...	Giza, Egypt See the similarity?

My Peru diary

Here I am off again, to South America this time, to Peru. As you all know, I am top class flier who never tires :)	My first day in Lima and I am at Plaza de Armas, watching a colorful parade opposite the palace.	I visited a beautiful 400 year old church in the square.
On day two, I flew to Puno and after a tiring day of shopping, I am in Apu Salkantay waiting for my smoked trout while everybody is enjoying Pisco Sour	ON day 3, I headed out on a speed boat on Lake Titicaca to the floating islands. The islands are made of reed and can be pulled from one place to another. Imagine taking your house for a walk !	On the way, I made some new friends. The people in Peru are so friendly, always ready with a smile and a helping hands. And the babies are so cute... like me as my papi says :)
Here I am at the watch tower on the floating island. The people on these islands, tired of wars, fled from land 600 years ago.	These islands are also sometimes called floating souvenir stands. I looked around for some time and then converted papi's hard earned dollars to useless trinkets :)	Getting off the boat I bought myself a popsicle in a shop that was playing a Hindi song ...
Here I am at Sillustani, in Puno. I am standing in front of a Chullpa built 900 AD	These towers were used to bury the dead. I tried to peep in but could not seen anything more than dust and darkness	I cam across two little girls carrying a cute little lamb and could not resist picking it up
Here I am in front of El Sombrero the mysterious table shaped island. The only thing I can hear is the wind ...	One the way back to my hotel, I stopped at a typical Andean village. I loved the pen they had built for their guinea pigs. I am wearing an Alpaca sweater we bought today	On day 4 , I took the Peru rail all the way to Cusco. As the train climbed it way through mountains, I fell back to my Junie Bs.
.. and some movies on Zune ...	though mostly books ...	Papa put me in the luggage rack in the train and I had lot of tourists clicking my picture.
The hotel in Cusco, had a little corner made to look like an Andean house.	On day 5, While visiting a farm outside Cusco, I got to feed and ride a Llama...	...and to see wool being dyed in more colors than one can find in the rainbow...
Here, I am in front of the ancient Pisac ruins in the Sacred valley. This is where I saw my first Incas terraces	After the tiring walk in the ruins, we cam down to the colorful Pisac market where I saw another Guinea pig farm.	And then It was time to model for all the cameras around me ... this one outside Ollantaytambo
I climbed up several large steps, and came to the Inca Sun Temple. Here I am pointing to a grove used for putting two stone blocks together	This does seem like a giant lego block, does it not?	On day 6, I visited Tambomachay which is a place used by Incas for praying. No one knows where the spring water (behind me comes from). It is a mystery!
Then I walked one kilometer to an ancient hunting lodge called Puka Pukara.	There, I met a little girl with a little lamb. She was kind enough to share it with me though my papi paid her mom 1 Soles.	Then I met an Inca warrior at Quenko. He wore colorful costume and carried a fearful battle axe
Inside Quenko, this is the limestone that represents a puma and was used in ceremonies	I took this picture. Don't I make them look cool?	The mountain behind me has huge grafitti and says Long live Peru in Spanish
Here I am at Sacsayhuaman which has huge walls made of very very big rocks	The Coricancha temple,
On day 7, I am off to Aqua Calientes in PeruRail	And Ta da. Here I am at Machu Picchu. The lost city of the Incas that they hid from the Spanish inquisition for 500 years !	The ruins are simply fascinating, so different from the well decorated ruins of Egypt. Though, these ruins housed actual live people!
On day 8, I got up the next day at 5:00 to hike up the 260m Inca trail for Wayna Picchu.	It is one of the steepest trail I have climbed, much more difficult than Mt. Si or Mt. Pilchuck	If I look a bit scared in this picture, then I am. I was sitting on the "flying steps" with a deep drop down to Aqua Calientes
Finally made it. Another feather in my cap	On the day, I was the youngest of the 400 climbers that are allowed each day	Here I am at the little cave under the Sun Temple at Machu Picchu.
On day 9, After all that sightseeing, we moved to the Amazonian jungles. Here I am in lazing on a hammock in sweltering heat amidst some unseen flora and fauna	One of the parkeets stayed with us the entire duration and took special liking to Preety	Our guide took us deep into the Jungle and could not resist a Tarzan swing. YOu should have heard me hoop.
On day 10, I got up early to take the boats out on the river to Monkey island	The monkeys were missing that day, but then I made the most of what I could.	After a 10 KM hike, took a cool dip in the river aware that the piranhas are probably not too far away
On day 12, We finally made it back to Puerto Muldanado where I got to ride a bike-rickshaw before we took the flight back to LIma	In Lima, we went to Pachacamac, which has a very very old Pyramid, nothing like what i have seen in Egypt thoughh	We went to a Peruvian restaurant ..
Where I got to dig into some great local food	And after a quick visit to the Museum of Gold	It was home sweet home :) :) until my next trip, Ciao