Hi Folks,

Its been a long time since I got into the blog. Some update from San Diego :) I had been busy with Kirthi's final months in High School. He graduated this summer from High school and during the same time I was interviewing with another company for a new position. I took a new position with Qualcomm as a HR Manager. Soon after I accepted my offer and gave my notice to my old company Kirthi and I went to India to spend some time with family and to look at our home that is being built in Kerala. It is coming out well. We got back on 27th and I joined Qualcomm on the 30th. The  Month of July had been a whirlwind of events for us. Kirthi got into Cal Poly SLO - http://www.calpoly.edu/ His will major in computer Science. He is very excited and looks forward to college life. He will have to go mid next month to join.

In the process of changing jobs and my son's graduation etc... I lost the blog link. Thanks to Maha  she send me the link so I can reconect with all of you. I hope everyone is doing well. I did see a blog on some obituaries, I wish their families have the strength to hold up at such terrible moment and are able to move on with great memories of their loved ones.

Regards,

Sunita

Update from San Diego

Hi Guys,

Its been a long time since I have blogged, sorry I will try to do more when I can. This year has been very eventful for me with lot of travelling. I got the opportunity to go to Helsinki & Espoo, Finland, and visit our Nokia head quarters. I went ot Finland in April but it was still cold. Got to tour Helsinki and get to know a little about its history. Got to see our headquarters in Espoo a little away from Helsinki on a lake made of all glass. Then in May I went to Costa Rica for a small vacation and I was surprised to see few similarities with Kerala, but I had a very wonderful experience. I got to see Arenal Valcano in action. A sight I will never forget in my life and also the opportunity to see rain forrest. I will be traveling to Dallas, Texas next month, to our American Head Quarters, I am not so fond of Texas though :( Its nice to see updates from Roshan and Usha. Congratulation Usha on your new house and new look. The house looks very cute and so do you :) Its was also nice to see Roshan's pictures on Kerala and Chennai. It is a nice way for us out side India to keep in touch with home.

Just wanted to say hello to everyone :)

Hi Guys,

I haven't been blogging lately, been busy at work and then the wildfire and nowgetting back to normalcy has pretty much taken a toll on me. Have been sick for a while with cold and constant coughing due to dust allergy because of the bad air quality after the wild fire. Getting better slowly, but the cough still persists, It will take some time for that to clear up. But other than that things are fine in SD. I see a lot of activity going on in the blog and it is nice to read everybodies contribution. It is geeting pretty cold here and Thanks giving is behind us. Life is normal is SD but you can see the scars left by the fire around you. Thank you all for your support and prayers.

Gracias,

Sunita

Sunita's Update

We were allowed to return to our homes on Thursday afternoon. Our home is safe though our yard looked like a war zone. Our Garage and our yard were covered with a layer of fine black dust, dry leaves and objects that flew in from others yard. We had no power, phone and internet for several days. Pretty much felt like camping in our own home.
We had quite a bit of cleaning to do especially the kitchen which smelt of spoil food, I had to throw out a lot of food. One good reason to clean my entire refrigerator :)
I am very glad that my fishes in the pond survived the ordeal though the pond was covered with ashes and dry leaves and they went without food for several days, It was a day's job to get it cleaned. we have our power, phone connection all restored over the weekend and life is comming back to some normalcy for most of San Diego. Even though the fire is not all out I am hoping they will be able to contain it eventually.
Kirthi is back to school; about 20 teachers and around 348 students lost their home in his school district. I would like to thank you all on behalf of jay, kirthi and myself for all your support and prayers.

The wildfires of CA

I had not seen this message from Sunita until now. I hope posting this on the blog will benefit those who didnt see it in their email inbox.

"Thanks for inquiring, it means a lot to us. 3 houses in our area completely burned down. I hope ours will still hold up. We are not allowed to go back yet. We are still at our friend's place. I am not sure when we will be able to get back. I hope it is sooner than later. But eventually what matters is we are safe.
Lot of our neighbors had to move couple of times since the place they evacuated to were not safe either. One of our neighbor had to move three times before they eventually managed to get back to Del Mar ( to their relative's house) were the authorities let the residents move in. Rancho Bernardo is were we live and it is still off limits since it was one of the hardest hit areas. As of now around 280 homes have been completely destroyed just in Rancho Bernardo alone. It seems like we will not be able to go back for another couple of days???? I hope we( not just us but the whole of San Diego) can put this ordeal behind us as early as possible. I will keep you all posted as much as I can.
Regards, Sunita"

My Memoirs

The life in MCC was one of my best experience that I had and will cherish it forever. Going back those memory lanes is a fabulos experience and it was wonderful that I could do it with Maha and Arul when they visited San Diego. I wish they could stay longer. I especially enjoyed my shopping spree with Maha in a nearby Mall. Trying out clothes, getting a free foot massage at brookstone, trying makeups at Victoria secret, Chowing on mexican food. Just the two of us like wild teenagers having some carefree time.... I truly enjoyed their visit with US. Kirthi took a special fondness for Arul and he still talks about him and feels he like he didnot ask more to say pry enough about how I was as a college student. He would love to dig some dirt on me and use it against me, but Arul and Maha were very supportive . Thanks both of you:) Kirthi was also very fond of Magil - Maha's son. That is all for now. This is my very first blogging and it feels GOOD:)

Gracias,
Sunita