"Are those shrimps?", chirped Little T as I was peeling and deveining the crustaceans for a salad. "Yes." "Why aren't they orange?" I bit my tongue just as I was about to blurt out the answer and instead said, "Let's find out!" I made her wait for a little while until all the shrimps were ready to be dropped into the boiling water. As soon as Little T saw the … [Read more...]

This year has been about new family traditions. For Advent, we made our own ornaments for our Jesse Tree and lit up luminarias. As we gathered together each night, we sang O Come, O Come Emmanuel as planned. But another tradition naturally evolved as we lingered around the tree: family music time! With Wonderful G's guitar, we sang, clapped, and watched our children dance to … [Read more...]

I was always interested in photos of my father when he was young. Though grainy and crumbling, questions and stories poured out from those precious few. I learned that he was stick thin and that even then, didn’t like smiling for the camera. I saw him through the eyes of my mother in a picture that showed him hard at work inside a steel water tank he was making. She fell in … [Read more...]