Happy New Year to all!

2007 promises to be a year of many changes for us, as we say goodbye to Dhaka, reunite with friends and family in the US, and prepare ourselves for our new lives in Paris. But perhaps that's getting ahead of ourselves...

December 2006 saw us return from our trip to New Zealand and Australia just in time to get everything ready for Christmas. It was time to get out the box of decorations again, take in the potted Norfolk Pine from the garden and spruce it up (pardon the pun), and get all the presents wrapped up. Since Atlas is significantly more mobile and curious than he was last year at this time, it was also important to have a little talk with him about actually waiting until Christmas morning to peek under the wrapping paper.

The great day came and went, we had a lot of fun revealing our loot, way too much good food to eat, and lots of time off to enjoy each other's company. Couldn't get much better.

For New Year's Eve, we all went to a new guest house that's opened up in a relatively quiet part of Dhaka, run by another member of the ex-pat community here - the Shilpi Lake Guest House. The man who runs it has his own craft shop, and has a distinctive design sense, so the place is quite aesthetically done up. We were the only ones staying there that night, so the owner and staff were able to cater to all our needs; we had an entire floor of the house, with two bedrooms. The kitchen was able to prepare food that the kids loved (pasta) at their normally early dinner time, then after they'd gone to bed, served us grown-ups a fantastic meal including all sorts of wonderful fish, seafood, chicken, and vegetables. We still weren't able to stay up to ring in the New Year (knowing the kids would be up by 5:30 or so the next morning probably had something to do with that), but it was a fun night away in any case.

Some photos from the past month -