Boston Day One

We got to Boston at 1:30 am. It was a long trip, and it rained most of the way from home. The kids were very good and well entertained by movies. Thank goodness for the DVD player!

After a leisurely breakfast with family and laundry because our clothes got soaked on the top of the car, we took off to see the sights of Boston. We saw Fenway Park and stopped by the Prudential Building. We then set off on a walk through the city that included a walk down Boyston Street passed the Boston Public Library and Trinity Church. I liked the saying that was inscribed on the Boston Public Library Building. "The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty."

We walked through the Public Garden and the Swan Boats to Charles Street and along Charles Street through Beacon Hill to a foot bridge near the Longfellow Bridge. We passed the Community Boat House and walked back toward the Prudential Center along the Charles Street Esplanade. It was fun to see a different side of Boston than I saw on my last trip to Boston, but I wore the wrong shoes that day and was not prepared for a long walk. The top of my sandal dug into my foot and gave me a blister that is still tender today. (I thought that we were just going to look at the shops along Newbury Street.)

We left for home after this trek and a stop at the candy store in the Prudential Center. Then, it was off to the Sam's Club, Lowe's for a grill, and Stop and Shop for groceries for dinner. What a tiring day that ended with a yummy taco meal!

Update

To bring everything up to date, we have had some changes the last few months. I haven't been blogging much due to other obligations. In the spring I took two classes to maintain my Intervention Specialist license in case I needed it for my tutoring position next year. In May I got a kindergarten teaching position and am very excited about the prospect of working full time again with children.

With the end of the school year comes the start of festival season. We did two festivals this year and I think that we might be done. I have not done well in the past in the fall and do not anticipate that this season would be any better.

We had some family friends visit in June, and I had a great time taking them to Amish country. It was the best trip that I have ever taken to Amish country. We had lunch at an Amish restaurant, visited the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center, and ended the day sampling cheese at Heini's.

Father's Day weekend brought Ron's two best friends and their families to our home. I had a great time catching up and getting to know the wives while the kids played. The kids had an awesome time playing together and playing on the water slide that our neighbors brought out.

July brought the 4th and time spent with family. We had a great weekend with parties and fireworks. Now, comes more time with family as we visit Boston and Maine!

I wish I could have seen The Sound of Music in the theater

A little bit of history with song and dance. A reall quality production.

Relax, what is that...

But if I have the time, I enjoy talking on the phone with friends and family, reading a book, and blogging.

Family Culture

As part of an assignment for one of my classes, I was asked to write about my family culture as if I were going to share it with my students. I thought that it would be a nice addition to my blog.

I am a first generation Thai American. I am an only child, and my parents are from Thailand in Southeast Asia. In my home we spoke mostly English although English is not the native language of my parents. I grew up with an understanding of Thai, my parents’ language and perfected my Thai language knowledge when I spend over three months in Thailand at the age of 10. I speak Thai in the main dialect and understand it in three dialects, the main dialect, the northern Phrae dialect, and the southern Yala/Pattani dialect.

My religious background is Buddhist. My parents grew up Buddhist and passed along the basic principles of thought to me. I was taught if you do good, you get good and if you do bad, you get bad. In addition I was taught to have great respect to elders and not to call them by just their first names. Therefore, I grew up with many “aunts” and “uncles”.

Education was very important to my parents and family. I went to private Catholic schools even though my parents were Buddhist because they felt that good education mattered more than the religion that was taught in the school. I was taught to do well in order to achieve my goals. I had cousins that came here for their higher education as I was growing up, and I was told that if they could do it, I could too. There was no question in my family about going to college. I was going, and I was going to get a master’s degree. Which I did!

Usually, we ate rice at one meal a day, most of the time, it was dinner. We also ate American foods and went out to dinner a great deal when I was growing up. We were not a family that had to eat traditional Thai food everyday.

I married a first generation Filipino American. He is the sixth out of six children. In his home they spoke mostly Tagalog, their native language, and he has an understanding of the language, but does not speak Tagalog fluently. He grew up with a Catholic background, and it was very important to his family to follow the church’s teachings. Through his culture he was also taught to have a great respect for elders just like I was.

My husband attended public schools even though they were very religious. Education was very important in his family also, and he was highly encouraged to go to college. In his community the Filipinos gathered together for social events, have a cultural center, and many social organizations that are based on their shared culture.

As he was growing up, my husband ate mostly Filipino food with rice as the basis. I believe that they mainly ate at home although they would sometimes go out for other types of Asian food. Foods that they ate that were American were ones that were easily paired with rice such as fried chicken, hot dogs, and SPAM.

As we raise our children as Thai/Filipino Americans, we combine our values and our culture. Our children are taught the same respect for elders that we grew up knowing. They are baptized Catholic and are raised Catholic although they are still influenced by Buddhist teachings because all religion is inherently good. They have grown up learning only English because it is the language that we are most comfortable speaking. Hopefully, one day, they will be able to travel to Thailand and the Philippines, and that will spark their interest in learning the languages. We raise our children to aspire to be all that they can be, but they have to go to college first! Both of our children love rice and will eat it plain as well as with chicken, SPAM, and bacon. We mainly eat American when we are out because it is convenient so the children are chicken nugget lovers, but rice is still an important part of our lives and we eat it a few times a week.

Sarah's Key

I read this book a few weeks ago and could not put it down. It is about how the Holocaust affected France and the round up of Jews in Paris. It also connects to the present in that a journalist is researching the Vel' d'Hiv' for its 60th anniversary. I agree with the review on the back of the book by Risa Miller, author of Welcome to Heavenly Heights, who said, "This book will stay in your mind long after it's back on the shelf".