A wedding, and a tale of two cities

This weekend, while Curtis attended a work conference in San Diego and the girls hightailed it to the grandparents house, I escaped for two nights to attend the marriage celebration of my friend Kris and her new husband, Helmut in Los Gatos, California. It was a wonderful, fitting party for these two special people, and somehow, I was so busy having fun that I forgot to take a photo of (or with!) the happy couple.

In a small window of free time on Saturday, I was able to see our sweet cousins, Brandon and Bailey, on the soccer fields. They are both exceptional players, and I enjoyed every minute of being a stand-in soccer mom on the field watching Bailey's game. And secretly, I hoped to blend in so nobody cried, "Imposter!" as I cheered for Bailey's team and politely clapped for the opposition. Must've pulled off the soccer mom look with some success, because no one called me out on it.

In addition to Bailey's amazing goalie skills, I was in awe of the diversity on his team. To illustrate, here were the names on the back of some jerseys: Madhav, SiMan, Zion, and Parth. (And yes, with much respect to avoiding racial stereotypes, it is safe for you to guess that Madhav is not a little blond, blue-eyed boy.) Now, for contrast, here are the names of a few of Mary's new friends: Maggie, Emma, and Josie. And of course, you can see our dilemma. We love Portland. LOVE LOVE Portland. But I miss the diversity of our former home, and the opportunity for the children to learn about different cultures, languages, and traditions from real-life pals instead of books.

Don't get me wrong. Our quality of life is significantly improved here in Portland. We don't sit in traffic for hours each day. Instead, we ride our bikes or walk as our primary mode of transportation. Portland doesn't have that awful, murky smog layer that was visible as my plane was descending into San Jose (cough, cough). But, one of the biggest trade-offs is that we miss the immense diversity of the Bay Area.

A recent Newsweek article pointed out the fact that we shouldn't encourage our children to be colorblind. Instead, we should explore and celebrate our varying heritages and cultures. Which is mighty easy to do with our pals here in Portland. And I can't help but wish it were a little bit bigger task of exploration. Sigh.