Jan-Feb 2012/ Las Vegas & Florida

February 28th, 2012 Posted in 2012, Florida, Las Vegas | Comments Off on Jan-Feb 2012/ Las Vegas & Florida

The Winter was spent following Jay’s High School Soccer Team through a very exciting season that ended with them losing in the State Championship Game. It was a tough ending to a wonderful season. Jay was a relatively young sophomore contributor to a senior laden team. He played about 20-30 minutes in most games, and it will be good experience for his final two years. Hopefully, they can get back there again, before he graduates.

Sareet went to Las Vegas to meet some of his college friends for Super Bowl Weekend. John, Sareet ,Jack and Brad had not lived in the same town (Taipei) together for 25 years, but they had been seeing each other very regularly through Sareet’s trips to the Far East. We managed to see a UFC Title Fight, while we were there (Condit vs. Diaz), and it is easy to see how this is rapidly overtaking boxing as the Vegas sport of choice. We also did play golf including a round at Shadow Creek, which is an amazing feat of architecture that Steve Wynn carved out of the desert by bringing in 20,000 trees.

Finally, after the disappointing end to the Soccer season, the school’s basketball team got to the State Semifinals, which was an opportunity to meet some old friends whom Sareet had not seen since high school graduation. We also had a nice surprise visit by the Weinsteins from Buenos Aires. It was fun seeing all the daughters growing up into nice young ladies.

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The Majumdars

Nov-Dec 2011/ Connecticut, North Carolina, Florida

December 29th, 2011 Posted in 2011, Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina | Comments Off on Nov-Dec 2011/ Connecticut, North Carolina, Florida

November was a month of re-connecting, but it started out on a bittersweet note as Sareet went to Connecticut to meet some of his college crew friends. The reunion was in mourning/celebration of the early passing of Chuck McGlashan, a great captain, who touched many of us. We dedicated a boat in his honor and celebrated his short but intensive life.

Shaun continued his running and set some great P.R’s, and his high school cross country team finished 3rd at States, and he and his friend and teammate Alex raced at Foot Locker Nationals in North Carolina. We got in a brief visit with our friends the Kinlins, while we were in Charlotte. The team was really a major part of Shaun’s high school experience. After track season in the fall, he hopes to be able to continue to run in college.

We had a great Thanksgiving with our friends the Fitzgibbons visiting us from Ireland. We had met them in Youghal over the past summer, and Sareet meets Johnny each year during the now annual Ireland golf trip. It was fun for the Indians to host the pilgrims. We had a post-Thanksgiving mini-reunion with Jon, Kyle, Liza, Chris ( Sareet’s high school classmates from a Class of 38 students). That’s almost a quorum. Sareet also re-connected with tennis friend he had not seen in over 30 years (Alan, Bubba & Scott)

The biggest surprise of the year was our final act of the year, bringing another living being into our lives, our new Samoyed Tzar. This has been a 10 year discussion on whether or not to do it, and we finally found the perfect pet to bring into our lives. Now that Sareet has finally given in, he wishes he had done it 10 years earlier. Hope to see many of you in 2012.

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The Majumdars

Sept-Oct 2011/ Nebraska & Florida

October 31st, 2011 Posted in 2011, Florida, Nebraska | Comments Off on Sept-Oct 2011/ Nebraska & Florida

Sareet took a 3 day golf trip up to Nebraska with Tripp, John and Steve (3 high school friends) to play Sand Hills and the Prairie Club. Sand Hills is consistently and well deservedly ranked as one of the finest courses in the world. It’s amazing natural terrain and blowouts (sand pits) made it a completely natural design for Ben Crenshaw. Mullen, Nebraska is a very hard place to get to, but for true golf fans, it is a must on the bucket list.

In October, we celebrated Michael’s 50th birthday at our house. It was great to have partners and visitors from all over the world to celebrate this occasion. This time of year is also very busy on the boys sports schedules. Shaun continued to have a very special senior Cross Country season. His team finished 1st in the District, 1st in the Regions and 3rd in States, while he finished 3rd in the Districts and 7th in the County individually. He capped off the season by being named 2nd team All County. Hopefully, he will be able to continue to run in some capacity in college next year.

The other boys continued with their club soccer and look forward to the upcoming School soccer season.

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The Majumdars

July-August 2011/ Ireland & Scotland

August 30th, 2011 Posted in 2011, Ireland, Scotland | Comments Off on July-August 2011/ Ireland & Scotland

As soon as Shaun returned from Shanghai,  we celebrated both his and Grandma’s birthday before Shaun headed to Cross Country camp in North Carolina.   When August arrived, we headed for Ireland with the family.  Papi has been going to Ireland for several years on an annual golf trip, and he always came back with great stories of wonderful vistas, friendly people and relaxing travel.   Finally, we decided to surprise the kids by taking them there for a week-long trip.

We started by staying at Abbey Glen in Clifden (near Galway) and went to the picturesque Kylemore Abbey/Castle. This compound with its beautiful gardens housed a Benedictine Girls School until very recently.   The gardens there are ample motivation for us to come back home and set up a nice garden at our house some day in the near future.  We took a ferry to see one of the many offshore islands (Innashofin), where we biked around and even ventured for a dip in the frigid North Atlantic.  This Conmerra area was very pleasant and a bit more untouched by the August tourist hordes. After Clifden, we headed for Tralee, which we used as our base to circumnavigate the Dingle Peninsula.  Papi had seen the Ring of Kerry previously and felt that the Dingle Peninsula was much more breathtaking and a lot less travelled, since the tourist buses cannot traverse those tight roads.

From Tralee, we headed to Killarney, where we took a Jarvey into the Killarney National Park, a beautiful and placid setting, and we saw yet another example of the British taking over some prime real estate during their colonization of the Irish.   The black humor in Ireland now is with the current state of the Irish economy, perhaps the British should take us back again.    From there, we headed south and west to Youghal (pronounced “y’all”), where we stayed at Aherne’s (www.ahernes.net).  This cozy bed and breakfast with the best seafood in Ireland is owned and operated by friends of Sareet, and the hospitality of the Fitzgibbons and Mohallys (two of Sareet’s golfing buddies) can never be repaid.  The town of Youghal was once the base for Sir Walter Raleigh during some of his adventures or misadventures to the New World.  It was also an effective base for us to visit Blarney Castle, kiss the Blarney Stone (not sure Jay or Papi needed this added incentive to talk even more) and stop by in Cork and see Cashen Castle.   This is also the area where Meme’s ancestors emigrated from, giving the boys their 1/16th Irish blood.

We finished the trip with a couple of days in Dublin, where we walked the area near St. Stephen’s Green and went, of course, to the most popular tourist attraction in Ireland, the Guinness Brewery, which takes up several acres right in the heart of the city.  The area around it smells of the hops, barley, yeast and water, the only ingredients of this ancient brew.   Interestingly,  for 4 million Irish (including every man, woman and child), the brewery somehow manages to ship 2 million pints per day into Ireland only.   Now, that’s market penetration.

The Majumdar boys made a pact to come back once Rowan graduates from High School on a golf trip.   By then, Shaun should be out of college and able to pay his own way.   Luckily for Sareet, his annual trip this year was in neighboring Scotland, where they played Royal Dornoch, Cruden Bay, Castle Stuart, Broira and  Nairn.   Next year, we will be back to Ireland to enjoy the better weather and the Irish hospitality once again.

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The Majumdars

May-June, 2011/Florida, Mexico & Shanghai

June 30th, 2011 Posted in 2011, Florida, Mexico, Shanghai | 1 Comment »

As the end of the school year approached, we celebrated Jay’s 15th birthday with a few friends by going to the 5th game of the Bruins-Lightning Conference Final.  It was a great win with the Lightning coming back from a 3 goal deficit, but eventually they lost the series in 7 games to the  ultimate Stanley Cup Champions.    Jay also had a solo performance in a special drama night (ANGST-JAY.MOV).  It was quite an entertaining short performance.

For Mother’s Day, the kids decided on their own (mostly Rowan and Jay’s prompting) to buy Mom the perfect Mother’s Day gift, a fondue set, so that she could prepare great chocolate and cheese fondues for them.   Somehow, it doesn’t quite work as well, when Dad buys this kind of stuff for Mom…..

Once the school year ended, Papi and Michael went to Mexico to visit our partners the Mares Brothers and their wonderful families.  We have committed to visit more often and will go with Rajjina and Soledad there next year.

In June, Shaun went to Shanghai where he visited some old friends and worked for half of the Summer at AEG as an intern. Our friends the Cappos added a surprise addition to their family, Jaden.   At AEG, Shaun helped in doing some marketing research and learned a lot about the set up and organization of major events like the Lang Lang Concert on Ice at the Mercedes Benz Center in Shanghai  (main performance center from the Expo there last year).  It was a very good experience for him to work further on his Mandarin and see China from a very different perspective than he had, when he was a middle school student there.   He continues to maintain blogs in Mandarin at You Tube (just type in “mashan7” for his video blogs).

March-April, 2011/Alabama, New England & Washington D.C.

April 30th, 2011 Posted in 2011, Alabama, New England, Washington D.C. | Comments Off on March-April, 2011/Alabama, New England & Washington D.C.

Spring has arrived, which means Spring Break for those with children.   It started out with a Big Kid’s Golf trip to Magnolia Grove, on the Robert Trent Jones Trail in Alabama.   One of Sareet’s good college friends, Don, recently had a successful kidney transplant, and Sareet went to Alabama for a weekend to play with Don and some old college buddies.  Modern medicine and Don’s persistence are truly amazing, as he was back to 36 holes a day in just a few months (not sure his doctor knows, but chances are he doesn’t go to Majumdar.com).   Don plans on making this an annual tradition

We also had a couple of visitors to our new abode during the holidays.  Ed Trn, a college friend of Sareet’s, and his son came on a college baseball trip.  Amy and Andy also came down from Knoxville to visit. We expect to see many of you to come down in the near future.

Shaun continues to work hard on his middle and long distance track times.  His rate of improvement has been very strong in a sport that he just discovered in high school. He is hoping to be able to continue to run in college.   Part of our Spring Break was taken up by touring colleges from Maine to Washington D.C.   We still have a couple of more trips to the Midwest and Southeast for him to be able to make the final decisions on where to apply and lock into the type of academic and hopefully athletic programs that suit him the best.   The trip started out in picturesque Maine, where we enjoyed great lobster like no other, and continued through New Hampsire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.    We finished in Washington D.C, where the entire family met us for the last weekend, so that we could visit some old friends, tour the Smithsonian and wander about in the Capitol Mall area.   It had been quite a while since even Rajjina and Sareet had been in Washington D.C, and it was truly fun for all of the family.

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The Majumdars

Jan-Feb, 2011/Taipei & Florida

February 23rd, 2011 Posted in 2011, Florida, Taipei | Comments Off on Jan-Feb, 2011/Taipei & Florida

We returned to our normal routine of being the world’s most active youth soccer parents.  By the time Jay and Rowan finish high school, Rajjina and Sareet will have gone to over 1000 youth soccer games, but we are sure we will miss it when it is all over.   Rowan was particularly proud to put up the life-size poster of his soccer idol, Lionel Messi, in his room.   Jay took a break from his club season to play on the JV High School Team, and he was moved up to Varsity at year end, which was an exciting experience for him.   He did that with his friend Austin, who dad’s both played Varsity Soccer together at the same school over 30 years ago.

Sareet took a quick business trip to Taiwan and China.  It was interesting having a free weekend in Taiwan to visit the National Palace Museum.   In the 8 years, since we lived in Taiwan, the most amazing change is the number of Chinese tourists that visit now.  Ironically, they are able to see many of the treasures that were “saved/stolen” from China by Chang Kai-shek in 1949.   The irony is that much of this would probably have been destroyed by Mao and his followers during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960’s, but now it is preserved for Chinese tourists to see in Taiwan.  Sareet also was able to attend the company Wei Ya or  Chinese New Year’s party for the first time in several years.

During the short President Day long weekend, the Kinlins were our guests at Camp Rajjina.  It was fun to hang out with our Shanghai friends at our new house and spend the days jet skiing, water skiing and tubing. Having 6 young boys and two old boys (Sareet and Clark) on the lake for the weekend was a great time.  We hope to see many more of our friends come down to Florida and visit.

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The Majumdars

Nov-Dec, 2010/ Snowmass, CO

December 30th, 2010 Posted in 2010, Colorado | Comments Off on Nov-Dec, 2010/ Snowmass, CO

The Majumdars bucked Thanksgiving tradition this year and hosted Rajjina’s brothers and their extended families here in Florida. It was a bit of a house-warming party and gave everyone a much needed respite from the brutal northern Winter.  It was fun having all the cousins in Florida, and we may have started a new Thanksgiving tradition.  Eventually everyone becomes a snowbird…..

Shaun finished out his Cross Country season with one of his best races at States.  The team was competing all year for the overall state championship, but ended up finishing a disappointing 6th place.  It still was a great season, and Shaun is hoping to continue his improvement through the upcoming track season and next year’s cross country season.  That may position him to run in college in 2 years.  Rowan got his first taste of school athletics by competing on the Middle School Soccer Team.  It was a special season for him to have a lot of his closest friends on the same team.  It should be a good core of players that will be together for another 6 years.

We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve at home with our 8th annual Santa Hunt.  It’s actually been a rarity for us (only two other times since Rowan was born) to celebrate Christmas at home in Florida, but it was fun this year, and we still got a White Christmas, as we flew out for Snowmass on Christmas Day.   It was a great family vacation.  We listened to a very moving book on tape on the drive to and from Denver to Snowmass. It was called The Last Lecture by Randy Pautsch.    If you have an hour, it is well worth listening to the lecture itself on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo).

Snowmass was a perfect family resort: good skiing for all, great food on the mountain, mammoth family Scrabble and Hearts games, great restaurants in town, and perfect weather the week we were there.   It is the perfect venue for families, and we can highly recommend it.

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The Majumdars

Sept-Oct, 2010/ Ireland & North Carolina

October 30th, 2010 Posted in 2010, Ireland, North Carolina | Comments Off on Sept-Oct, 2010/ Ireland & North Carolina

September means that the summer ends for the boys, but just begins for Papi. Sareet took his annual golf pilgrimage to Ireland. This year the group expanded to 12 and we played: Ballybunion Cashen, Ballybunion Old, Waterville, Dooks and Tralee. Once again, the weather was perfect and the courses were outstanding. The tour centered around Killarney and the Ring of Kerry. Sareet’s favorites this trip were Waterville and Tralee, both gorgeous seaside courses. Part of the annual tradition is Sareet and Johnny’s seaside swims in the ocean, this time the unseasonably temperate north Atlantic. He looks forward to next year’s adventure.

The kids remained busy with their schoolwork and sports. Shaun has the added challenge of a very tough Junior year curriculum, while he trains daily to improve in Cross Country. The team looks quite strong this year, and Shaun is committed to bringing his personal best 5K time down by over 1 minute. The early races at University of Florida and the Great American in Cary, North Carolina were great tune-ups for the upcoming district, regional and state races. Sareet also took a quick business trip to Germany and visited the Atta Caves, an amazing collection of stalactites and stalagmites that were formed over 400 million years ago and not discovered until 1907. The caves are currently the most visited caves in Germany.

We still hope that many of you can visit us in Florida over the next year.

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The Majumdars

July-Aug, 2010/ Florida & Boulder, CO

August 30th, 2010 Posted in 2010, Colorado, Florida | Comments Off on July-Aug, 2010/ Florida & Boulder, CO

Having Fun on the Lake
July was a pretty momentous month, as we moved into our new house on the Lake.  The boys quickly learned to jet ski, tube and water ski  (check out the short video).  I guess we are officially enjoying the wonders of Florida and have made it full circle from our urban lives in Shanghai only 3 short years ago.   It was also momentous for us, because we added another driver to the household, celebrating both Shaun and Grandma’s birthdays in July.  Shaun’s driving will put somewhat less pressure on Mom and Papi’s taxi service, technically about a 20-30 hour moonlighting work week in the burbs. We hosted the cousins at Camp Rajjina once again this Summer, and it was a blast having all of them on the lake.

In August,  we went on a short corporate retreat to Sanibel; Sareet’s roommate from college, Jeff, along with his family, visited us.  We finished off the month by going to the wonderful outdoor wedding of Elias (Rajjina’s step brother) and Trish in beautiful Boulder , Colorado.  It was a beautifully done ceremony and a great chance to have a fun family reunion in a funky hip town, supposedly the fittest city in America.  By the number of joggers, bikers and boarders that pass you on the sidewalk, it does seem that way.  Now, it’s time to get back to school and return the kids to the much needed daily routines.   We hope that many of you can visit us in our new home.

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The Majumdars