** Many thanks to my brother and sister-in-law, James and Anita, for a FABULOUS packing/travel tip! **
YOU WIN!!!
and, Your Baby will have the cutest fleece hat in all of Bangalore. 
We’re so glad you gave the best tip (not that we were at all biased in our choosing, I promise!) because we know that you will soon have a little one of your own to love and cherish and dress in cute little clothes. Plus, we don’t even have to worry about shipping the hat now because we will see you so soon, and we’ll get to hold that little one in our arms too. Can’t wait, can’t wait! [For our readers, James and Anita are due to have their baby at the end of March. It will be our second niece or nephew, which means Leila will have a little playmate on both sides of the family. JP likes to say that she'll have one pure white cousin, and one pure brown, and then she'll be the mix in the middle. CUTE.] We’ll look forward to seeing you (all three) soon!
[And again, for our readers, you may wonder if a fleece hat will be of any use in India. Well, don't you worry, I've seen many a baby wearing a hat during the cool morning or evening hours in Bangalore, which is a slightly elevated city, and thus a bit cooler than many other Indian cities.]
Regarding the packing/travel tip. We help a lot of people prepare for travels to India, and making a copy of their passport is generally part of the instruction. Unfortunately, many people forget to do this, and we’ve even had the occasional problem because of that. If you travel internationally, you must keep a copy of your passport with a friend, as James and Anita suggest, as well as keeping another copy in a separate area of your luggage. But even better than that, and this is why they won, keep those copies on a web-based e-mail account in case you can’t find your copies anywhere. I LOVE this tip! I will be doing this myself, and I will be insisting that groups traveling with our assistance do the same. It will save us many headaches, I’m sure. Additionally, one of my friends works at a large church that does a lot of travel and mission trips. She will also be implementing this tip, as she’s the brains behind all of the organizational stuff, and she agreed this was a very helpful tip. Thanks from both of us!!
