One of the things we absolutely love about living in India is just how kind and welcoming everyone is to us. For instance, Adam’s whole team in India was having an offsite team building activity at a fancy resort just outside of Bangalore (which was supposed to be for employees only) but somehow our family also got invited along. His co-workers actually always insist on us coming and absolutely LOVE when the kids or I show up to anything work related. It has really made our time in India so special and made the kids and I especially feel welcome and a part of the team Adam works with! What a blessing it has been to get to know so many incredible people through Adam’s work and to have made great friends with many of them. We both have just felt so fortunate to have the associations we do because of Adam’s work here. The people here in India are all just so amazing! We love them!
For this particular activity Adam’s team was all meeting at a fancy schmancy resort up North, but had only planned on staying at the resort until that evening. The resort a fairly good distance away though (like 1.5 to 2 hours) so we decided it would probably be best if we stayed the night and made a little weekend get-away out of it! đ So that we did! It gave us the flexibility to have a room to put kids down for naps in if needed, and to not feel rushed later that evening when it came time to put kids to bed. It really ended up working out very well and made it so that we could spend the maximum amount of time with Adam’s team as possible! Score!
We took off that morning around 9 am, but then didn’t arrive at the resort until about 11 am. We hadn’t really been told much about the resort before we got there, but we were all instantly impressed once we arrived! We felt like we’d stepped right into Egypt! The decorations and sphinx were so cool! And we loved the Egyptian theme!
The grounds of the resort were amazing too, with golf courses all over, little bungalows and cottages with private pools, and lots of places to play sports (cricket, volleyball, badminton, table tennis, etc). You could also swim, eat, get massages (which Adam did) and even dance at the disco! This was our kind of place!
We met up with the rest of the team who had come via bus or their own personal cars, and then had a lovely buffet Indian breakfast together.
Then after breakfast we all met up in a larger grassy area to do some “minute to win it” games. We were divided up into teams by number and given team names like the Snakes, Pigs, Sheeps, and Dogs. So funny!
Branson and I were on Team Pigs and our team actually ended up winning almost every minute to win it game and got 1st place in the tournament! Go Team Pigs!
Team Sheep? I can’t remember.
These guys I’m pretty sure were the snakes!
And the Dogs!
For our first minute to win it game one of our team mates had to put lipstick on each member of our teams lips faster than the other teams. I showed everyone how to pucker their lips and stand in a line so that our appointed team mate could swipe the lipstick across our lips as fast as possible. The below picture is the excellent lip stick work that was done on my face! đ
Another game was blowing up as many balloons as possible in a minute and then not letting any touch the ground. We ended up blowing up tons of smaller balloons (I was the one designated to tie all the balloons) and then stuffing as many of them down our team mates shirt. We once again ended winning having almost 10 more balloons than the next teams! Go team pigs!
Adam got to participate in the next game which was to chug down a baby bottle filled with sprite by sucking it out of the bottle. This game unfortunately ended up flopping when one of the bottles regretfully was missing its nipple! It just so happened to be Adam’s. So no real winner could be found! But our team mate once again was the winner between the other 2 teams that didn’t have missing nipples! That sounds so funny to say! ha ha!
Another game was having to tie knots in a long piece of string as many times as you could in one minute using only ONE hand. It looked super challenging but our guy did pretty good. I think we took 2nd place on this one.
After all the fun minute to win it games, the team all moved to the “sports” portion of the activities and went to play some cricket as a team. The kids and I played football off to the sides for awhile, but then decided to go and hit up the pool. Adam joined up with us later!
The sunset was amazing that night! The view from our hotel room.
The rest of the day was pretty much spent eating, playing golf, swimming, and chatting with co-workers, and then that evening they had a big Disco dance party in a rented private room. Our awesome friend Reggie ordered our family in some Chinese food (since the appetizers being served at the dance were all super spicy and not things they would eat) which was SO nice, and then we all hit the dance floor shaking our boot-ay’s after that. It was SO MUCH FUN! Branson wasn’t feeling much like dancing so he stayed on the sidelines and watched, but Dawson, Harry, Adam, and Adalynn and I hit the dance floor hard showing off all our killer moves! ha ha. Harry ended up being the life of the party though and all Adam’s co-workers just got a big kick out of him and how uninhibited he was. He was just tearing it up out there and looked great doing it! That kid has no fear. The highlight for our Indian friends though seemed to be when Adam started swing dancing with me! It was a style of dance that I’m sure isn’t super popular in India and they were just a whooping and hollering at us as we danced. They loved it! And of course I was in dance heaven too! Adam knows dancing is one of my favorite things and he really went all out to put a smile on my face. I sure love that man.
After we were all exhausted from Dancing and the kids were starting to wear down, I took the kids back to the hotel room to put them to bed, while Adam stayed and saw all his co-workers off or the night. We sure had a blast with our friends and were so grateful for their kindness in inviting us along! Thanks so much for the fun day!
Because we’d only gotten one room (they were quite expensive) we ended up having to get creative with the beds that night and ended up moving a rollaway bed the hotel had brought in for us to the foot of our king bed where we set up the three boys to sleep lengthwise so their feet were all resting on our beds. Then we put Adalynn in two comfy chairs facing each other so she had her own little bed as well. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked and we all slept pretty well regardless! đ
The next morning we pretty much just took things easy exploring more of the grounds, playing some ping pong, going to the restaurant for breakfast, and then Adam took Branson golfing and then went and got a massage while I took the kids swimming. We thought Ad was going to meet up with us to swim, but he never showed up and later we came to find out he had gone for a 30 minute massage. Lucky!
We found a cool little fish pond that had a turtle in it too! Here Harry is holding the turtle in the water.
While the kids swam I read my book under this beautiful tree in the shade – but was surprised when I looked up to see these pretty flowers in it (I thought it was a palm tree). I’m not sure what kind of tree this is, but I loved the flowers none-the-less. They made me happy!
All in all, another fabulous weekend in India! We really are living the life here and feel so blessed to be having all these incredible experiences with the kids. We especially are loving all the wonderful friends we are making and all the goodness and kindness of the Indian people. They have taught us so much!
