Adventure in the mountains

It has been too long since I've written anything, but here I am again.

Happy and Lucky are growing and are starting to challenge Nadia and Anandi about who's really the boss. It is great fun to watch the competition. The dogs found an Indian tent water turtle in our yard. It is still a mystery where he came from. So now we have another pet named, Squirt. It was a bit of a problem trying to figure out what to feed it, until Stephan shot a fly into his bucket. Squirt took the bait immediately. So he is a carnivore and loves insects. You can imagine the fun the kids have with Stephan catching insects and the look of horror on my face whenever I accidentally look into the bucket at feeding time. Yes, the whole zoo came back this summer and we are fighting to keep them outside.

On Saturday we went to Kasauli. We know it is a risk traveling in India while pregnant, but we needed to get out of hot Chandigarh (above 40 each day). This time we discovered a trail we've never seen before, the Gilbert Nature Trail. The board did not tell us how long the trail is and if it will bring us back to Kasauli, but being adventurers, we started walking. It went on and on and so did we. It became very hot and we almost finished all the water we had. After about 3 km we realized there's no circle route, we had to go back the same way. But there was a thunderstorm brewing above us. Far below we saw a gravel road that went in the direction of Kasauli. In the mean time an old man, who probably lived his whole life in the mountains, caught up with us and warned us that the weather was very bad and threatened us with very big hailstones. He invited us to stay with him, but his house was also far away. Kasauli was about 6km away. There was a town in sight and we ask him if we could buy water or Coke there. No, they don't need bottled water or Coke there. So we had little choice but to get out under the trees, risk the steep, slippery road over the pine needles and go down to the gravel road heading back to Kasauli. In the mean time thunder was crashing around us and it started to rain. But it only lasted about 10 minutes. It did not solve our water problem though. The rain cooled down the temperature quite a bit, but we were thirsty. At the point I thought I couldn't give one more step, we saw a shop with a fridge and all the water we needed for the rest of the trip. We walked nearly 12km on Saturday.

God got all the honor for our safe arrival at the car. We had an interesting discussing, about how the events of the day convinced the kids that God is real. Most people I know belief God is real, but many of them struggle to believe that He cares about us and the problems we face each day. I belief He does, even the very small details. A day like Saturday, was the perfect reminder of that fact.

God: "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." - Heb 13:5.