Dad's Visit

The first weekend in April, Dad came down to visit us for a bit. He arrived into Tampa on Thursday afternoon, and I picked him up at the airport after a short visit with Stone and Pat and their 9 month old Aidan Max (he was so cute!!! They gave us some great supplies for when our baby comes, including a fold-up playpen and carrying harness...)

Dad's flight was a bit late and I was also late getting to the airport, so I was worried I missed him but we met up soon enough. That evening I cooked Balti Shrimp Paneer and parathas and we just took it easy. Even though the Maritimes are just up the east coast from here, it's quite a journey to get to Florida. Dad drove 4 hours from Saint John to Bangor, Maine, where he stayed overnight, as his flight left at 6 am the following morning. Then I think he had one or two connections before arriving in Tampa at 2 pm. (Going back it's not much better - his flight left at 6 pm and he missed the connection in Atlanta so spent the night there before getting back to Bangor and driving home the next day.

Friday morning I took dad for a 20-minute hike on the San Felasco trail. There were so many mosquitos! I was pretty tired after that, as I was still in the first trimester. Then I worked the rest of the day. Saturday and Sunday we hung out around Gainesville, eating out and going to places like Lake Alice and Haille Plantation village center. Saturday morning we also went to cheer on Sameer in a badminton tournament at UF. It had been two years since he had played regularly. He played doubles with Salil and their opponents were pretty tough, so they lost their first match. Too bad :(

Dad and Sameer played carom a bit. (He seems to do much better than I at that game! The striker never goes where I want it to...) There were some good basketball games on TV, too, so we all watched those together.

Dad also showed us two recipes - one for making baked chicken quickly and another for cooking salmon. We made the chicken and bhindi together one evening. I don't think Dad had ever had okra, as it's not common at home (at least I never noticed it there... it could be that I just didn't know what it was, though). The chicken was yummy, even though the "original" Shake 'n Bake flavor was different here in the U.S. We didn't have a chance to cook the salmon but I made it with Dad's recipe after he left. Turned out pretty good! Now we have a reason to use our oven more often!

I took Monday off so I could spend the day with Dad and take him back to Tampa. We went to Clearwater Beach. On the map it looks very close to the airport, but it took us 40 minutes to get there due to traffic. It was beautiful - perfect sunny day and the beach was packed with people. Dad went in swimming for a bit and I took pictures. I hope to do lots of swimming this summer but I wasn't prepared that day... Then we had dinner at the airport and I saw him off. Come back soon, Dad!!!!