Have you seen the movie Hachi: A Dog’s Tale? It’s a remake of a 1987 Japanese film about a dog named Hachiko, his human, and their amazing, true story. I don’t think that the movie, which stars Richard Gere, Joan Allen, Sarah Roemer, and some adorable Japanese Akitas, even had a theatrical release in the [...]

During our visit to the Tomodachi store in Roseville yesterday, we picked up some origami paper so we could give the traditional Japanese art form a try. Origami (from oru meaning “to fold” and kami meaning “paper”) has been a celebrated art form in Japan for hundreds of years. To create origami sculptures, you fold small, [...]

This is the face of someone who has tried roasted seaweed only to discover that it tastes like fish. And not the kind of fish that’s been slow roasted on a cedar plank with a nice ginger glaze. Nope, this was like scooping a fish out of the creek and licking it. But I give [...]

I totally forgot to post the trifle we made during England Week. The kids and their schedules are driving all thoughts from my brain. Actually, it’s not them—their schedules aren’t too crazy at the moment. It must be Olympic Fever!
Have you ever had trifle? It’s a crazy-good English dessert made from custard, fruit, sponge cake, [...]

You’ve probably heard of blubber, but I bet you’ve never stuck your hand inside a bag of it. But that’s what I made my children do as part of an experiment for Antarctica Week.
The Blubber Glove experiment (courtesy of the Spangler Science Labs) uses ice water and a bag filled with shortening (filling in for [...]

We finished up England last week and are on to—well, you’ll never guess, so please come back tomorrow to find out! But before we move on I wanted to share one last thing with you.
England Week was basically us glued to the television watching the Olympics. Have you been watching? The competitions are incredible, of [...]

We’re on to England! Which means a week of watching the Olympics for glimpses of castles and cathedrals between events; chuckling over the names of traditional foods like bubble and squeak, jam roly-poly, spotted dick, and bangers and mash; and reading some of our favorite English stories. And I’m sure we’ll fit in at least [...]

Have you ever traveled to a place that really got under your skin? So much so that when you got home you found yourself looking for somewhere close by that would help you recapture the experience?
That was definitely the case for me when we returned from China. We’d spent three weeks there when we went [...]

I’m so excited because today we get to spend the afternoon with two of my oldest and dearest friends and their families. One of them I see quite often because she lives just an hour away in Northfield, but the other one I only get to see every couple of years because she lives in [...]

“There were days when she would take an aimless ride in a rickshaw, immersing herself in the choreographed commotion of the streets, where banners in bold Chinese characters waved down through shafts of sunlight, advertising sales, silks, mah-jongg sets, live birds, ivory. She found Shanghai to be ‘a great sprawling rambling’ place filled with beautiful [...]