Beardsley Zoo, Connecticut

Over the President's day weekend we visited the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Of course we had planned the trip with Pradyot in mind... but as it turned out, his dad and I enjoyed it as much.  The animal kingdom is so darn fascinating !!  so i thought of sharing some of our better clicks from the day...

^^ the peafowl that greeted us outside the Rainforest building

^^ Blue-sapphire Poison Dart Frog that i had only seen in photographs before..

^^ Scarlet Ibis..

^^  Golden Lion Tamarin that seemed like the most friendly creature around..

^^ Emerald Tree Boa 

 ^^AmurTiger that we could not get enough of. Nishi and i kept shooting it every-which-way... but we just could not capture its magnanimity with our not-so-versatile-digital... 

hope we have better luck the next time.

Happy Tourism day !!

Did you know that  since 1980, 27th September has been celebrated as World Tourism Day ? Well I didn't till my friend Neelmani from Wandering shoes mentioned it on FB and I googled to dig a little more into the facts... So wishing you all a very happy Tourism Day... and with those of you who are stuck at home like me and are making travel plans for the forth coming holidays.... I would like to share some photographs of our first travelling venture with Pradyot ... 

when Pradyot was 4 months old, Nishi got  invited to attend a meeting at University of Utah. Unwilling to stay by myself with our little boy, we piled along.... and I am so glad that we did. for the campus of University of Utah is breathtakingly gorgeous and with the Utah weather particularly kind on us, we had the first wonderful vacation as a family of three.. 

In all, we stayed in SLC for 4 days. we put up in the university guest house for the first three and a half days.  there, while Nishi was busy with the academic chores,  Pradyot and I followed almost the same routine each day. A early leisurely breakfast in the dining place overlooking the Salt Lake city valley...  followed by a morning stroll along the Fort Douglas Blvd, before the fresh air soothed Pradyot to his morning nap... then a light lunch... and some more strolling  and mother-son-mirror-photo-sessions... while we waited for Nishi to join us for our evening stroll and a snacky dinner.

On our last day in the city, half way through the day, we moved from the campus to Hyatt Place in Downtown Salt Lake City. Ours was a nice  cozy hotel room with a view of the snow capped Wasatch mountains.

it was there that daddy and son finally got to catch up with some vacation time before mamma roped them both in for some window shopping at the Gateway Mall.

The mall was within walking distance from our hotel and since it was my first big outing in a long time, that afternoon, i  spent an obscene amount of time wandering about the streets....  trying out previously unexplored cuisines and window shopping in all the exquisite stores that i hadn't been to before...

 also for keepsake, the basketball fan in Nishi insisted that we take pictures of us with the Utah Jazz as the backdrop :)

and it should obviously be noted here that that afternoon i was able to wander at my heart's content for our baby boy decided that he needed a long nap and let his mamma and bappa be.....

So ThanK YoU  baby boy for being such a darling all along.... and making our first  vacation together so lovely, enjoyable and special  !! 

Atlantis Marine World

Ever since we moved to NY, we have been spending all our weekends shopping... grocery, furniture, clothes, grocery and more grocery.... so last weekend we decided on a picnic to the Atlantis Marine World... Since K is extremely fond of this Baby Beluga song, we had assumed that the sight of the seals, sea lions, sharks and colourful fishes would excite him and broaden that gorgeous smile of his...

but instead he got a little wary and somewhat scared of all the frisk movements.  in fact the only creatures that he was able to look directly into the eyes were the piranas, starfishes and the jelly fishes.

 i guess he is much too little to realize that the creatures in the tanks were in fact the living forms of the cartoons he adores so much...

 

however Nishi and i had great time there and we decided to take Pradyot back to the aquarium once he is a little older... may be one or two years down the line.... when this wriggly baby of our grows into a little dare devil... and his mom summons enough courage to get a kiss from the sea lions :)

hope you had a fun weekend and a wonderful start to the week.. thanks for visiting..
take care ♥♥♥

Mt Washington

we had been to Mt. Washington before....

once with friends back in 2010...

and then again with family...

however the other Sunday we decided to go there again... and this time we explored a spot that we hadn't visited before. we viewed the Pittsburgh skyline from one of the funiculars scaling Mt Washington.... the Duquesne Incline...

The funiculars in Duquesne Incline ferry passengers between its upper station in Grandview Avenue and lower station on East  Carson Street.  its a mere 6 minutes ride... but its a fun ride nevertheless. we took the ride down the incline in the century old cable-car. bought our tickets from the lower station.  and almost immediately took the ride back to the upper station... the cable car moves very slowly. so you don't really feel anything... but the view is spectacular... enough to entice even a 8 month old :)

the upper station building houses a lovely observation deck  with a panoramic view of Pittsburgh Downtown ....

and a cute little museum of Pittsburgh history including photographs and a lot of information and pictures of cable-cars all over the world....

 but it was the souvenir penny minting machines that scored the points with us :)

our baby enticed and thrilled by the whole spinning act laughed and giggled every time we spun the handle... and we did that as many times as we could for we  loved the impressions on the pennies and wanted them all for our collection....

we also liked the upper station gift shop from where i bought......

few DI picture postcards for my collection,  a pretty little poster of Southside works because it was pretty, a  DI-shot glass for my mother's collection and a DI pen because it was cute :)

With just 2 weeks left before we move to NY, I am begining to get a little sentimental about the little things that i'll miss about Pittsburgh. as a friend pointed out the other day... once in Long Island, we'll probably miss the easy traffic and short commutes to interesting places like this... every once-in-a-while.....