I’ve migrated all the pictures that were hosted on the server in Gallery 2 to our Flickr account. Unfortunately, the links to the photo albums within the posts are no longer active. However, you can access our Flickr photo stream integrated into the blog by clicking on the “Flickr” tab above.
Published on December 22, 2009 in Baby and Family.
2009 was just one of those years – one I’ll never forget but glad its over! It started on a rickshaw and will likely end on a beach. The return from India to San Francisco, the birth of Julian and the sleep deprived “tunnel” of the following 8 weeks, focus on friends and family, my time with Julian, the job “search” and our trip to Uruguay round out the year.
Foremost, I’ll never forget 2009 because Prachee and I were blessed with a healthy and happy boy – Julian Saahil was born on April 7, 2009 in San Francisco. It’s been an amazing experience, truly life changing in so many more ways than we expected. I’ve had the incredible opportunity to take care of him at home through his first nine months and share the many milestones during that time. Julian starts Daycare shortly after we return from Uruguay in January and I’ll be devoting myself full time to my job search (and getting back to the gym to lose a few of those sympathy lbs). Prachee has done an amazing job of updating her Flickr page with pictures of Julian, you can access the photo stream from our blog: http://www.thevignoles.com (select the Flickr Tab).
Returning from India was definitely bittersweet, we had a wonderful 2 years and will cherish the memories and the friends we made. My last adventure in India was the Rickshaw Rallye – Craig Scott and I drove 1300 Km on the East coast of India (a blog of our travels: http://rickshaw.pracheeandcharles.com). Upon returning to San Francisco we moved out to the ‘burbs, I’ll be brief and just say it’s a love-hate relationship. One absolute benefit of being back in California is that we’ve been able to see our families more often. Julian loves all the attention he gets from his grandparents and Prachee and I appreciate the free babysitting We are closing out the year in the Southern Hemisphere. Julian gets to meet his Uruguayan family and get thoroughly spoiled by his Oma & Api (grandparents), I get my warm weather fix and Prachee is practicing her Spanish.
At the same time, I am glad this year is over. It has been one of transition, uncertainty and shifting priorities – and for me a lot of soul searching as to “what’s next in my career?” I guess that’s very much in line with the sentiment of a lot of people in the world this past year. Looking forward to 2010 with a renewed sense of optimism and purpose for the challenges ahead.
Prachee’s parents were coming out for Thanksgiving this year to spend some quality time with Julian, so we decided it would be a great opportunity to officially host our first Thanksgiving. Claire and her boyfriend Jason as well as my Mom Joyce joined us for the weekend. Prachee and Shobha outdid themselves with the Thanksgiving meal – everything was made from scratch, even the cranberry sauce! I have to mention the cranberry sauce in particular because I kind of like the canned jelly one. The fact that it comes out in the shape of a can and you slice it into jelly “circles” is for some reason appealing to me – I know, weird! I was responsible for the turkey and after watching my friend Dana fry 5 turkeys for our huge Thanksgiving in Barcelona (during B-School) I was really considering frying the thing. After much deliberation I opted for the traditional roasting and I am happy to report I didn’t embarrass myself – the turkey was juicy and thoroughly cooked. Chris, Lindsay and Santiago couldn’t join on for the Thanksgiving meal so they came over the following day for brunch. We decided to skip the leftovers and go with Bagels, Lox and scrambled eggs. As you can see from the pictures Santiago and Julian were having a great time together. The “adults” on the other hand got hyper-competitive at Wii Bowling – those guys at Nintendo really out did themselves!
Both Prachee and I have always liked Portland, but it had been 10 years since we’d last been there as Management Trainees at Toyota! This year we were determined to go back and visit friends and family – and introduce them to Julian. We met our friends Sarah & Munier (& their son Rohan) in Bangalore when Prachee got Obama fever and got involved with the chapter of Democrats Abroad that Sarah had founded. Their “tour of duty” ended just short of election day and they returned to Portland, but we said we’d get together again back in the US. Prachee’s cousin Ajay and his family (Brook, Maya, Sophie and twins Cash & Kai) are also long time Portland residents and in the last year had added twins to the family. It was great to catch up with the Portland Date’s whom we hadn’t seen since our wedding and of course also meet Cash & Kai. Portland has only gotten better in the last 10 years and we also got to visit the town of Hood River on the Columbia River Gorge – Sarah & Munier have their lovely weekend place there. It was a bit chilly, but we ventured out to the Pumpkin patch and grabbed a beer at one of Oregon’s finest brew pubs – Double Mountain Brewery in Hood River. We had a fantastic weekend and Julian loved his first of hopefully many more Portland trips!
Another great weekend of vintage racing at the Monterey Historic Races where Porsche was featured. My dad came up from San Diego, Chris, Saurabh and my friend Bob (Click for Bob’s Pictures) headed down on Saturday and met up with Craig there. We saw a bunch of the same cars (and the characters that drive them) we’ve seen in the past, and of course some very cool Porsche’s with some serious racing pedigree. I guess the other notable “sighting” was of McDreamy – yes apparently Patrick Dempsey is a race car driver. Poor bastard, he’s good looking, is on a hit TV show and races cars to boot! In the end he didn’t do that well in the race, but he was driving a Mazda Rotary LeMans car that given my affinity for RX7’s was my personal “best in show.” I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Prachee’s dad Vivek (Ajo, pronounced Azo) had not had the chance to come for the birth of Julian so he decided he and Shobha would come to California this summer while Saurabh was in town for his internship. Uncle Saurabh having been in B-School had not had the chance to meet Julian in person either, while Shobha hadn’t seen him since weeks after his birth – so Julian had gone through some incredible changes since she was had last seen him. It meant that the we were all be in the same place at one time… given Saurabh’s and our “globe trotting” this has not been easy to accomplish in the last few years! We took the opportunity to take some family photos to commemorate the trip.
Shobha had to go back to Maryland and Prachee’s maternity leave was ending – Vivek decided to extend his trip and he and I took care of Julian that first week Prachee went back to work. It was great to have him there to help me and also for the company! Julian also got to spend some extra quality time with his Ajo.
Julian spent his 3rd month birthday in San Diego, getting spoiled by his grandparents: Oma & Api. My mom took over the Oma title from her mom – it means grandmother in dutch, Dad was supposed to be Abu (as in short for Abuelo), but Santiago decided he would be Api, and it stuck. For being the eldest on the Vignoles side of the family it is Santiago’s prerogative to name the grandparents!
It was also Julian’s first plane ride! He did really well and didn’t fuss at all – just watched the flight attendants as they came and went and won them over with an appropriately timed smile. This was a first “test” of flying in anticipation of our Uruguay trip at the end of the year. While the 1 hour flight pales in comparison to the 13 hours in flight (+ 5 hour layover) it’s all about the baby steps! One of my favorite photos is Julian sitting in the Lotus where he seemed perfectly content. Next trip I am going to strap his car seat into the passenger seat and take him out for a spin – will be hilarious to see what looks I get! It was great to see so many friends during our trip and to get a chance to introduce them to Julian. We look forward to coming down to San Diego again soon!
A couple notable additions to the Julian album warrant a separate post. Bob & Heather spent a year in Bangalore as part of the team that started IronPort’s software operations. While Bob’s day job is IronPort, he is an extremely accomplished photographer and was gracious in volunteering his time for a pro photo shoot of Julian. Auntie Heather also brought dinner for after the shoot… can’t beat that!
If you are in the market for a photographer for your event in the Bay Area, check out Bob’s work on his website: www.bvzphoto.com
2009 was just one of those years – one I’ll never forget but glad its over! It started on a rickshaw and will likely end on a beach. The return from India to San Francisco, the birth of Julian and the sleep deprived “tunnel” of the following 8 weeks, focus on friends and family, my time with Julian, the job “search” and our trip to Uruguay round out the year.
Returning from India was definitely bittersweet, we had a wonderful 2 years and will cherish the memories and the friends we made. My last adventure in India was the Rickshaw Rallye – Craig Scott and I drove 1300 Km on the East coast of India (a blog of our travels: http://rickshaw.pracheeandcharles.com). Upon returning to San Francisco we moved out to the ‘burbs, I’ll be brief and just say it’s a love-hate relationship. One absolute benefit of being back in California is that we’ve been able to see our families more often. Julian loves all the attention he gets from his grandparents and Prachee and I appreciate the free babysitting 
We are closing out the year in the Southern Hemisphere. Julian gets to meet his Uruguayan family and get thoroughly spoiled by his Oma & Api (grandparents), I get my warm weather fix and Prachee is practicing her Spanish.