Recently, I had an early afternoon appointment in downtown Baltimore, MD. Since my husband was off work that day I invited him and the kids to come along and wait for me to finish my meeting so we could visit Port Discovery (the beginning of our stacation adventures...stay tuned for more entries).
This whole opportunity for quality family time turned out to be a cultural learning experience. While we were at the Baltimore Inner Harbor we saw the last Coast Guard cutter that survived Pearl Harbor. After quizzing the kids on where Pearl Harbor was (Hawaii), Jonathan asked, “Who bombed us?” Well that lead me to tie in Japan and the story my Dad just told them the weekend before about his two-year military stay in Okinawa. At Port Discovery we got a private tour of the Egyptian Exhibit where we learned even more about a culture in a faraway place.
At a recent scrapbook convention, I used this story as an example of Ethnic Scrapbooking and one woman responded that I have too much time on my hands…is that really the case? Absolutely not, dealing with four kids and their summer schedules too much time on my hands couldn’t be further from the truth, but being an engaged parent …Absolutely, that’s what I’m about…taking every opportunity to inspire my children to learn, embrace, and understand.
