On the left is Kushbu, today she turned 17, she was only 9 years old when we met her back in 2002. Her sister Hemu is in the middle, she’s visiting from Tucson where she is studying nursing, and is only a year and a half away from finishing that. On the right is our friend Sonal, mom to Hemu and Kushbu. It is the recognition of young people’s life milestones that really gives the appearance of time flying by. While us older people go about our routines the wrinkles may become more pronounced, we might put on some weight, and many of us add some grey, but as children go from grade school to high school to getting drivers licenses and then contemplating college it becomes brutally apparent that some serious amounts of time are passing so we must be getting older. The five of us went out for dinner and afterward went over to the Cheese Cake Factory for some dessert and a good old-fashioned out-of-tune rendition of the birthday song. The only person missing from the picture is Ba, their grandmother, who is in India right now on vacation – I can’t wait for her to return as she is the best cook of Gujarati food, ever. Anyway, we had a great time out with the Patels only wishing this happened more often.