Akki's Birthday

For her birthday Akki wanted to have Indian food, so we went to Tandoori Grill in Boulder. The meal was good, but as usual we ordered a ton of food. Surprisingly we didn't finish all the food (it happens so rarely). Maybe it was because we were all still full with turkey!

After dinner Akki wanted to watch a Hindi movie so we headed home. We ended up watching "Metro". Nice movie, but a bit long.

1st Thanksgiving

Since we were finally homeowners and had the space we decided to host Thanksgiving at our house this year (and give the Millsers a break). The crowd wasn't too big since a quite a few were out of town or had already made plans. The menu was

• Turkey & Gravy - Bri & Me
  
• Stuffing - Alan
• Mashed Potatoes - Bri
• Cranberries - Me
  
• Green Bean Casserole - Addy
• Apple Pie & Ice Cream - Siew Gin
• Pumpkin Pie - Me
• Drinks - Darshan
• Entertainment - Tyler
  

Since this was her first Turkey Day feast, Bri was a bit nervous, but everything worked out great. Her herb seasoning was excellent and it turned out really tender.

I got to carve my first Turkey!
Not too hard, plus I got a lot of instructions from Alan and Siew Gin.
The food was excellent but special praise goes to Addy for her Green Bean Casserole.



After eating we were all pretty much in a food coma and slowly moved around the TV to watch some movies. We ended up watching "Initial-D". Addy was all excited since it was in Chinese (actually Japanese dubbed in Chinese). After that we just hung around eating more food before everyone headed home.

Darshan's cooking

The last time Darshan invited over to his place for Indian food we ended up eating pizza. So we never let him off the hook for that. So when he invited us over again, we were understandably skeptical. When we showed up most of the crowd was already there (Akki got us lost in 'her hood'). Luckily there was food still left. Given how tasty his cooking was I think most of us went for seconds, then thirds.

While we were all food comatose, Rohit wanted to see what Hindi movies Darshan had and we ended up watching all the songs from one of the movies. After that we went to see the new James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace" at the IMAX theater. It was good, but I'm not sure if it's as good as the first. But then with the first one we didn't know what to expect and this one had very high expectations going in.

Ingrid Michaelson

Bri got me tickets to Ingrid Michaelson for my birthday. We've both been fans of her ever since we heard her in an episode of Grey's Anatomy and then on an Old Navy commercial. We went to see her last year and it was great. She wasn't that famous at the time and we even got to talk to her and have her sign a CD. This year she was the main act and things were quite different.

She had two awesome opening acts. Usually you go to a concert and are waiting for the opening acts to end and the real show to begin. This time we were actually hoping that their acts would go on longer.

The first opening act was very good but the second guy blew us away. His name was Newton Faulkner and he was a wizard with the guitar. He played "Bohemian Rhapsody" by himself, nuff said.

Ingrid Michaelson was awesome as usual. Lots of fun. At one point in the show she started to since "Ice Ice Baby" and then when onto the opening song from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the whole crowd stared to sing the song. She stopped singing and we kept going. After that she said that we were all big dorks like her.

There are entertaining concerts, and then there are fun concerts. This was both.

Pike's Peak Badminton Tournament

We had a lot of Badminton tournaments this year, a lot of them were back to back, week after week. So when tournament season was over we were happy for the rest. But can we really have 'too much' badminton?! When Jim suggested one last tournament of the year, we of course all agreed to support the sport and were excited to play. It was held in Monument Colorado where Brad grew up there. Turns out we played in the same high school that he attended....small world.
The tournament was a lot of fun. Singles was tough, kept getting out of breath.

Double and Mixed were fun and Uyen and I won bronze. Sabrina and Ullas were grouped with 'B' as not enough 'C' doubles signed up. It was fun and challenging, but at least some one in the family brought home a medal!

Damith's Birthday

This year my birthday fell on Election Day. Since it was my birthday I got to decide what we did, and that was to relax at home and watch the election. We picked up some of my comfort food (meatloaf) from King Soopers and some sparkling cider and headed home. We spent the rest of the evening enjoying the food and drinks while watching election results come in. Let's just say that I wasn't the only one that got a present that day :D