May: Mother's Day in the Maldives

Happy Memorial Day, Friends and Family!

We hope you are all spending time today enjoying the kickstart to summer with loved ones as well as remembering those who fought for our country.

On our end, we are working away as the only holidays we have are a few public holidays that often don't get identified until there is a sighting of the moon!  That's okay though because like most countries abroad, we get more vacation days in the UAE than in the US!

We have had yet another busy month full of new experiences!  We started the month off with Mana's 19-year-old cousin brother, Yash, visiting from Mumbai.  He made it clear that his main interest during his visit to Dubai was to smoke shisha.  So with that, we investigated to find the best shisha lounge with a view and took him to Shimmers in front of the Burj Al Arab.  Needless to say, it was the best shisha we have smoked in Dubai!  Between the shisha and a bit of sightseeing over a day and a half, we had a great time together!                                          

Though we were shisha'd out, Mana's friend from business school, Val, was in town for work from Thailand so they met up at Siddhartha Lounge at Grovesner House and caught up on life.  It was the perfect way to unwind during the workweek and wonderful to have a taste of home. She even came over and impressed Myla, our Filipina nanny, with her Tagalog.  Myla was amazed that Mana had Filipina friends in America! Thanks, Val, for helping us score brownie points with our nanny!

We worked away the following week before we headed off to our most anticipated trip of the year: The Maldives!  We had been hoping to visit this magnificent place ever since we got married, but had trouble justifying the distance from the US for the experience.  Finally, we made it happen!

Without a doubt, it was worth the wait!  From the seaplane that landed on the clearest waters we have ever laid our eyes on, to the overwater bungalow experience, this trip could not have been more amazing!

We spent five days indulging in our infiniti pool over the ocean, reading books on the hammock, and spending the most quality time with Naaya as we looked at fishies through the glass floors.  To top it off, Sahil and Naaya were so sweet and bought Mana flowers from the main island to be delivered to Iruveli, the remote island we were on, for her first official Mother's Day!  Between the uninterrupted special time with Naaya and Sahil, pure relaxation, and gorgeous surroundings of the overall holiday, Mana considered it to be the most perfect Mother's Day ever!

The proceeding weekend we had scheduled yet another trip: a visit to Mumbai to see Mana's parents.  We got some really quality time with them.  While we celebrated their 44th anniversary together in person with them, we also celebrated in spirit Sahil's parents anniversary, Sahil's Mom's birthday, and Mother's Day for all 3 moms (including Mana :)).  We celebrated them at Sea Lounge in the Taj Hotel.  Between the extraordinarily tasty food, the gorgeous view, and the perfect ambience with the pianist playing old classics, the five of us had a blast together!  We also learned that Mom and Dad had gone there together on one of their dates early in their marriage so it was perfect that they were returning with their kids and granddaughter! 

We also got to see Sahil's grandmother, Ba, and Naaya was able to spend time with her great grandmother in India for the third time over the last 9 months!  How special! :)

After a whirlwind of a trip to India, we returned only for Mana to get back on a plane a few days later for a work trip to Egypt.  Though it was brutally hard for Mana to be without Naaya overnight for the first time since she was born (Mana cried the whole way to the airport), she had the most rewarding consumer learning experience to date in her professional career.  She spent 4 days in Egyptian homes understanding their needs, struggles, and family environments in ethnographic studies along with the regional team from Singapore and India.  The learning was fascinating and monumental in determining next steps in regards to the direction of her brand strategy work.  During her downtime in Cairo, she also visited the pyramids for a second time (the first being on KWEST with Sahil and some Kellogg friends at the start of business school).

During the time that Mana was away, Sahil had a great few daddy-daughter days with Naaya.  He returned from Saudi one day early so that Naaya did not have a night without one parent at home.  They took full advantage of the day off as they went to the park with our other friends with kids, ate at CPK for lunch, went grocery shopping, and watched videos of Mumma together.  He also had a blast with our friend Ashok, Mana's bschool friend Priya's husband, who was in town.  They went to our friend Ana's birthday party and caught up on the happenings in the Raju world in NY.

Though all three of us only had one day of overlap this past weekend, we took advantage by catching up on our naps at the same time, walking around the Marina together, meeting Sahil's cousin Darpan for milkshakes with his sweet daughter, Priyana.  After a great day together, we put Naaya to bed and capped it off by renting "This is 40" - HILARIOUS movie which we recommend for a night of unwinding! 

On a professional front for Sahil, he has been having a great run between selling work and delivering on the very different needs of clients in this part of the world. He is also adding richness to his work experiences by focusing on the public sector in Saudi.

As for Naaya, she is growing ridiculously fast! Between clapping on verbal demand, being able to stand alone for moments at a time as well as cruise, saying Da-da for the first time at 9.5 months, continuing to say Mumma, shaking her head no-no-no, eating, eating, and more eating, jumping away in her jumper, and pulling her Mom's hair at any chance she can, she is growing into a big girl so fast!  Her face is also constantly evolving.  Lately, our friends have been saying she looks more and more like Mana.  Here's a photo of Mana as a baby with her Mom while being held by her dad.  As you can see, Sahil put the photo next to Naaya's face to compare Naaya and Baby Manku - now you decide and let us know what you think!

We are excited to share that we are finally in Dubai for this upcoming weekend with fun social engagements.  On Thursday, we are going to Left Bank in Madinat to meet Arif and Tina, friends of Mana's childhood friend, Shilpa and her husband Ripu.  On Friday, we will close out our month by attending the 2nd  birthday party of our friends Sumati and Kaustabh's son, Shiven.  We can't wait to experience a CHILL weekend at home followed by the month of June in Dubai during the Shopping Festival part TWO! :)