Family Encourager

Wishing you all a beautiful new year full of love, peace, health, and friendship! Reflecting back on this year and the ever looming questions. What have I achieved this year? What failures and successes did I face? What did I learn? What can I keep the same? What can I change? I am still working on the answers and looking back at my year. Connecting the dots, questioning, analyzing, and wondering if 2015 was a year to be remembered or one to file away and forget? Looking at the world around me and the terrible news from all over the planet, my feeling is humanity has reached an all time low. Yet, when I delve deeper, I understand ,that with all the death, mayhem, and destruction around me, there is a balance of love, charity, helping hands, and people willing to support others with no questions asked. I am blessed with family that I love and loves me, with friendships that have lasted the test of time and distance, a bountiful life full of more then I wil...

People that live down the street from their families, never have to answer the question, where can everyone stay? How many family members can we fill into our home for a week or a month? As I have said from the start, we are an expat family living abroad. I have never had the pleasure, in my adult life, to just visit my folks for a cup of coffee! Its either they stay with me in my home, or I stay with them back in my childhood room. When it was me alone, it was easy, I slept in my old room in my old bed. As my family grew, it started getting more complicated to figure out the logistics of the how and where? As newly weds, we also did not have the extra space for anyone to spend a night or two let alone a week or more. If we decided to book a hotel nearby, it was never the same. The kids did not get up in the morning and run to the grandparents room for a morning hug, they did not get a chance to ask for a special breakfast made by the special hands of ...

With the festive season fast approaching, I am giving a thought or two to what I want my children to learn from this time of year.  Living in a multi cultural city, with people from al walks of life, everyone seems to agree that this is an exceptional time of year. Even those that do not celebrate Christmas, find it a good time to catch up with loved ones, take a moment to reflect on their blessings, and to maybe think of giving back.  I grew up away from my country and extended family, and now my children are doing the same. My parents made sure we knew where we came from and what was important to our family. We integrated into our new "home" easily and adopted numerous local customs, while staying true to our culture. I give plenty of thought in my daily life to how I can remind my children of their heritage and their country of origin. While making sure they become "citizens of the world", accepting others and respecting differences, I would still ...