Farewell with Tea

Meggar starts back to college tomorrow, so we crammed in all the last minute goodies we could: shopping in Kansas City, finding sales, and a new tea house to try. Also mass at Cure parish, connecting with KC friends, and holding hands with each other. Girly time is essential before another semester.

In fairness to her brothers, Meggar also spent time with them -- at Sonic, Starbucks, and Snow Creek. They all received stylish sweaters from Old Navy from her for Christmas, since she has an employee discount, and they loved that. Here's a photo after a long day on the man-made ski slopes along the Missouri Rivery bluffs. (Unfortunately, Polar Bear had just discovered his snowboard was stolen when they came in for a cocoa. It had new bindings which he had bought with his own money, too. What a shame.)

Konnichi-wa to the Year of the Dragon

Although slightly past New Year's Day, my tradition was carried out for another year.

I love to celebrate by making a Japanese meal for a different family each year and and sharing with them the culture and customs of Japan. It helps me honor my friend Akemi, who is still a pen pal. And it brings back fond memories.  She stayed with our family during the summer of 1980 for a 4-H exchange. Such pictures! And I stayed with her family during the summer of 1983 in Tokyo. She was a friend who provided me with a great adventure--whilst I was "stuck" in a small-minded, small town during my teens. 
The best part was showing my souvenirs having Megan and Dale take over the two cooking woks so I could eat and tell stories around the table of 12 people. It was hard work for them to keep making tempura for a dozen eaters. But there was plenty of sticky rice and green tea, too. Later, the twins really impressed me by serving the chocolate fondue in separate serving cups/plates for dessert. (Not Japanese, but delicious repast.) So responsible of them! 

Finally Going Out

Meggar convinced us to go out for sushi during the twin's hockey practice in KC last night. She is fascinated with the "Drunken Fish" restaurant in the Power & LIght District. Captain also loves sushi, so they were giving suggestions to Dorito and I. Captain likes spider rolls and Meggar had something similar. In the end, I ordered the Philly Roll, and it was excellent. (I haven't had sushi since 1983 when I was in Japan.) Dorito stayed with the cooked teriyaki steak and a side of rice, but he carefully sampled a bite off the plate of his sibling. He made Twitter-type comments all the way home afterward :-)

DragonWings

Captain finished up our read aloud after lunch today. And how appropriate, given the airplane connection in the story of "DragonWings" by Lawrence Yep. This Newbery Award winning tale was new to us, but such an immersion into the city of Chinatown and its immigrants just before and after the San Francisco earthquake.  Moon Shadow, the narrator, is helping his father, Windrider, build a flying machine at the same time as the Wright brothers are. (Good discussions with our sons about Chinese culture, flying, models, and discrimination.) This historical work of fiction is based upon the life of Yue/Feng Ru, a young Chinese immigrant. He created an aircraft factory and built two planes--the first one crashed into his own shop during its test flight, burning everything to the ground. But he built another plane, and it flew for 20 minutes from the Piedmont Hills, as reported by the Associated Press, on Sept. 21, 1909.  Yue returned to China in 1911 with his mechanic, and they are credited with building China's first aeroplane. Yue was killed in a crash in 1912.   (Listen to a wonderful interview with the author, who credits his Jesuit English teacher at Catholic high school for his successful career.)

Vintage Learning

I dressed up as the School Marm for the first "class" at the Pony School yesterday. The newspaper photo shows how we started with a Recitation exercise of "Old Ironsides"--featuring the elocution skills of the local Superintendant, YWCA director, and a Commerce Bank trust officer. Then I saddled the newspaper editor with spelling lists to practice at the board whilst I was giving a geography lesson from an 1822 map. He grumbled plenty. My current events questions about the upcoming election seemed to perplex everyone, until they realized the date written on the board was January 3, 1860. Lastly, the banker was stumped with an interest rate word problem until a retired CPA came to the rescue and pounded out the long division (by hand, not with a calculator). The excitement in the room was palpable, and the pace was dizzying. But it was only a 30-minute peek into the curriculum we will offer to full-day and half-day visitors at our Prairie School exhibit.

Tournament Champions!

Despite an earlier loss, the twins and their Russell Stover '98 team pulled a victory out of their hats at the "Music City Winter Classic." We had six games, one shut-out for Remy, two shoot-out nail-biters, two goals that were called off, Dorito muttering about the refs on my left side, Mr. Kruegger drawing the refs a picture on his clipboard, and a nice breakfast at J. Christophers with Turley and Frank!  (P.S. Prayers go out to Ryan F., who broke his shoulder in the '97s game.)

Praying with the Dominicans

We went through the front gates at the convent and were overwhelmed at the size of the place! Once inside, we were amazed at the beauty and the NUMBER of nuns in ivory habits. The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia have been in Nashville since 1860, teaching and singing and praying. We joined them for Vespers (sung liturgy) and the Rosary in their stunning chapel.

Just enough time before and afterwards for a partial tour with Sr. Mary David and Sr. Anne Francis.