Day 0-1- flight from sfo to blr, kids super excited, stayed up & played till the flight at 1am. boarded the flight & watched movies, slept ~4am pacific time. not for long. R super diligent throughout trip to do potty in the toilet (joy ;)). stayed awake for most part of the SFO to hong kong flight. Tanush watched back to back movies, repeated cars twice. rithvi watched boss baby back to back without any volume 😀 in hong kong i left my boarding pass on the plane, thinking we would board the same plane to singapore. apparently not, i had to have the boarding passes printed again. was stressed about that while kids ran around, the counter to print the boarding was not open. in retrospect nothing to be stressed about. HKG to SGP kids continued in same high mode. didn't eat a whole lot. service and food was great! Had an 8 hr layover in SGP. visited butterfly park which the kids loved! i loved the tropical type climate. kids spent a decent time at play structure, R threw a tantrum bcoz she didn't want to go down the giant slide and didn't know how to get down. ate at the food court, super expensive and not great. lost R's baby giraffe at the airport. R asked if it would be sad 😦 kids watched the fishes in the koi pond, did a decent amount of block coloring at the art station. did another trip to butterfly park. i was exhausted & i could tell kids were too but they didn't want to miss anything. SGP to Chennai flight R crashed, followed by T soon after. sent their food back. finally landed!! R refused to walk & had to be carried through customs & baggage claim. She got a healthy dose from me while she was cranky. To add more fun, i had a hand written indian passport & was informed that these r not supported anymore. so longer wait, consulting, walking to office etc with cranky R on my hip. finally finally i was out of the airport! saw pappa 1st, R started getting in to form. T was excited. saw mom & so relieved the flight was done! drove to woodlands hotel to settle in. by the time we slept R & thatha were fast friends and they slept together in 1 room while mom, T & I shared another room

Day 2 – i had my visa finger printing appointment at 1pm. had breakfast, me trying to figure how to order a carb free protein breakfast. no such luck, ordered a sandwich with cucumbers and tomato. before the appointment i realized i don't have a printout of the appointment. thank fully Radhi & Prasad bhava had come by to visit us. They drove us to the appointment and prasad bhava got us the printouts. appointment was smooth other than me being mortified about having to repeat my fingerprinting multiple times because of my hand sweating. There are assistants to help you wipe your hand & get a good fingerprint (eye roll). after the appointment we had a really nice lunch next to woodlands. great ambience and food. had some yum non veg i don't remember now. went back to the room to take a short nap that turned into 3 hrs, got up at 6pm. relaxed the rest of the evening & slept. R with her thatha as usual.

day 3 – had my visa interview at 10:30am, went there with dad, appointment was smooth, was out of there by 11/11:30am. got back to the hotel and headed out with the kids to the beach. T had a good time and R chose to play in the sand. headed back to the hotel and had lunch. started driving the blr after lunch. kids slept through most of the drive. R insisted she needed a bandaid somewhere in the middle of the drive and I'd rather off load all the luggage in the back than tolaterate her crying, so that's what i did. By this time R and I had a good no. of mosquite bites and were constantly scratching ourselves. Thankfully T was ok, he was very diligent about mosquito repellent since he landed. Reached blore at ~8/8:30pm. house looked great, not v kid friendly of course hehehe.

day 4 – next day was rest day, the help we had hired for the kids was a no show. kids hung out around the apartment complex while mom passed the word around that we need help for the kids. visited Roshan, Rishma & their lil one in the evening. took an uber. baby is adorable. had dinner, amazing mangalore style fish. Rosh dropped me back home.

day 5 – visited raggiguda temple, R was excited about petting stray dogs and i had to give her strict warning to not pet them. We tried to do some shopping, but had to retreat quickly after Rithvi pointed to a dozen jewellery sets and said she wanted them 😉 in the evening took the kids to jayanagar 4th block to shop for some traditional clothes. Tanush loves these clothes and very excitedly picked what he would like. Rithvi lost enthusiasm pretty quickly and needed to be forced to try out clothes.

day 6 – started driving to mysore 1st thing in the morning. i was impressed with the freeways, very cool. stopped for breakfast at our usual spot. the kids were able to spot monkeys. continued driving and did a pit stop at Ranganthittu bird sanctuary. took the boat ride and spotted a number of crocodiles along with many birds. Really enjoyed it! Continued driving and finally checked in at sports club in Mysore. nice place, kids loved that they could see the stuffed wild animals like bear, deer, boar, tiger. the plan was to meet all the uncles & aunties in mysore. Most folks showed up and it was really nice to them. Rithvi took to Sridhara uncle and they were fast friends. by the end of lunch she said he was her favorite. after lunch we went to Nagesha uncles's house & get my aadhar card done very close to his house. that took longer than expected. after that went with kids in tow to see another cousin who had just had a baby. was nice seeing everyone and hanging out. got back to the sport club after that, crazy no. of mosquitos there!

day 7 – the next day we visited mysore zoo, took the car and was done in a hour. then we took a tonga to the mysore palace. took the guided tour at the palace, i enjoyed the tour. R got lost for a bit in there but we found her pretty quickly. her favorite uncle joined us for the zoo & palace tour. got back for lunch and rested. in the evening we drove to lalit mahal, drove around a bit and got back. had dinner and rested.

day 8 – next morning drove up chamundi beta, kids saw lots of monkeys. darshan was too crowded. started driving back to bengaluru. stopped on the way at Palahalli to meet Kanthakka aunty. Kids were fascinated by the chickens, dogs, cows nearby. rest of the drive to bengaluru was smooth, kids slept after lunch. got home in the evening, had dinner & slept

day 9 – had called all our relatives in Blore over for lunch. Was good to see everyone. Pappa had ordered biriyani which i tasted. it was very good!kids had a really good time with everyone. Tanush was fascinated by the jeep gifted to him by Mukesh uncle. R just had a good time with all the uncles. The kids who came by had a good time with play-doh. It was good to catch up. everyone left about 4pm. rest of the day was relaxing.

day 10 – still no help for the kids. 1 lady we spoke to the previous day fell ill. mom & i were super stressed about WTH is going on. however in this case the lady had genuinely fallen sick. Eventually she started coming from 2 days later. Didn't do much, was supposed to have a friend come over but he couldn't come

day 11 – caught up with Harshitha & Rakshitha at Orion Mall. food was good, pigged out on dessert, i.e. waffles 🙂 after they left, we still hung out at the mall. The kids played legos at Landmark with mom while i shopped around. got R another ghagra and some salwar suits for myself. when i wrapped up, i found a decent collection of childrens books at Landmark. headed back home and rested

day 12 – The help for kids finally started. Smitha came by with Saanu! took our help Malar with us to Vishveshariah museum. museum was good, kids ran around and tried different stuff. had lunch at the cafeteria on that floor. wanted to watch some shows there but there wasn't enough turnout so we headed out. thought we would try the Nehru planetarium but apparently auto drivers don't know how to go there and don't care to. then we took an auto to UB city mall but the guy was driving us around somewhere else so we got off at Bangalore Central. It was already evening by this time so we headed home in separate autos. was fun though!

day 13 – caught up with Pradeep, Supriya and Deepak for lunch at BBQ nation. I went without the kids while Prad got Chirag. food was amazing & the dessert! was good fun catching up with them. Prad & Supriya/Deepak hadn't seen each other in 10+ years!

day 14 – started driving to Dharwad after breakfast, kids slept during the morning. freeways were good and the drive was smooth. stopped for lunch and continued driving. kids had a good time hanging out at the aquarium in the lunch place. kids enjoyed seeing tons of windmills and enjoyed the drive. got to Dharwad by ~5pm. We needed to buy sarees for aayi & Sanjeev's aunt whom we were going to meet. It was a nightmare driving through Dharwad market place, so much traffic and we have no idea where the saree shops are. finally located it, got the sarees and headed to the hotel. Hotel was in a nice spot and rooms were decent.

day 15 – had breakfast and started driving to Kulgod. kids enjoyed the ride, they spotted a lot of goats and sheep on the roads. lost our way couple of times but made it to aayi's house. kids had a good time at the farm, petting a buffalo calf and running around a kitten. From aayi's house headed to Kaaka's house. kids loved his house, went up & down the stairs to walk on the roof several times. thankfully i didn't have to run around them as kaaka's son Mohit was there. Had lunch, hung out for a bit and then headed to our hotel in Gokak. On the way mom & dad commented that there is so much water there that we should check out Gokak falls. There indeed was! it was quite beautiful, other than the tons of people everhwere. kids enjoyed. R was fasinated with the women in burkhas and asked if she could have one. did some shopping at Gokak Mills, good quality clothes! finally checked in at our hotel, had dinner and slept

day 16 – next day we made another trip to Gokak falls to walk on the suspension bridge, R was scared & had to be carried. from Gokak falls we headed back to pick up Aayi & go to Kaaka's house. met the other 2 kids of kaaka, supreet and samarth. they were so excited to see the kids and all the kids played well. mainly hung out on the roof and had a really good time. had delicious lunch with obattu and chapati/palya. talked with kaaka for a decent amount of time to understand how things run and his challenges. it was nice to talk. ~3pm we started driving to davangere, out pitstop before reaching bengaluru. stopped on the way at a hotel that had ducks, birds and a dog. kids had a good time again and we continued driving. finally reached davangere. nice hotel but badly maintained. mom dad's room had a rat in their toilet. coudln't sleep very well that night.

day 17 – started driving to bengaluru in the morning, but 1st had the famous benne dose of davangere. it was delicious! drive was pretty smooth and we reached the last metro station nagasandra around noon. dad recommended we try the metro station and i'm glad we did. i was very impressed with it and we reached jayanagar in ~1hr. dad continued to drive and reached home almost an hour after we were home. relaxed for the rest of the day. got a pedicure, heaven!

day 18 – went shopping in 4th block to get gifts for akka & nieces. Rangoli is a nice store for traditional clothes, checked out Global Desi opposite it and really liked it. got akka a suit and myself a t-shirt. got the kids back for lunch and i headed out by myself using Uber to residency road. got myself a saree and wall hanging at Utkalika. Shopped for more kids books at Sapna book store. mom called at this time that R was throwing a tantrum and that she wanted me. i think she thought i had left to US. i had been prepping her about my departure. then i headed to koramangala and shopped some more. wrapped up & headed home.

day 19 – took the kids to nehru planetarium, T enjoyed the show. after the show we headed to hard rock cafe. great food and then headed to cubbon park. kids enjoyed the train ride, followed by a couple of rides at the park. played on some of the play structures, was a really good day. in the evening took an uber to a rooftop restaurant in koramangala to meet Arun, Naveen, Roshan and Prathima. very pleasant weather and enjoyed the place. was so good catching up with Prathima from school. i barely knew her then but knowing her know i have to say she is so cool! we've been doing fitbit challenges together & decided to catch up in bengaluru.

day 20 – started packing & weighing the suitcases, was nervous about leaving the kids behind. was done with most packing on thursday

day 21 – headed out to buy sweets and add that to the luggage. good bye to the kids was not bad, mom took them downstairs to play. hugged them and headed to the airport with uber. indian trip over! Bengaluru airport was impressive, not sure i would say the same about air india. passengers were badly behaved. food and service was ok. reached US on saturday!