Houston Italian Festival

A few weeks ago, we went to the Houston Italian Festival. We'd been a few years ago, but it has really grown since then! There was so much to see and do!

We watched some Tarantella dancers. There are several myths or legends about how these circular dances started. Here, we were told that dancing had been outlawed in Italy (or Sicily?), so people would act like they'd been bitten by a spider and dance around to get around the law. I read other stories about being bit by spiders. The stories are pretty interesting. Anyway, it is a lively dance and fun to watch!

We also got to watch a pasta eating contest... very funny! This lady, one of the dancers, came in 2nd last year... and she won this year! Most of the contestants were men. :-)

We enjoyed watching teens participate in sidewalk chalk art. The contest was called I Madonnari.

I Madonnari events actually take place all over Europe. At this Rosa Villa site, they said that these events started in Italy in the 1980's when artists started reproducing famous art on the famous squares in Italy.  My mother says she has seen this kind of sidewalk art in several countries in Europe.

We tried several different types of food at the festival. We ate pizza for dinner... it was more traditional Italian with a very thin crust.  When we were at the festival before, we had tried the donuts called Sfingi and enjoyed them. So, we bought them again... and didn't enjoy them as much. So, we tried Italian Ice and loved it!

They had only a few rides, but Alex tried this one we've never seen before. Only 4 people ride at a time and they 'pump' with their arms to make it spin around. We watched the ride a few time, and we saw the people (mostly adults!) looking VERY sick. Well, I wasn't sure Alex should try it but she LOVES crazy rides and never gets sick. I let her try it... and you should have seen her smile... the whole time! She never once looked sick. Whew!

We saw this guy who was making REAL mosaics! His art was incredible. He is actually chiseling the pieces to make them the correct size and shape!

And, we watched the kids doing a grape stomp! The barrels are filled with grapes. The kids stomp, and the grape juice goes out a tube in the bottom to a bucket below. The kids only got about 5 seconds each. Later, adults were going to have a contest to see which team could make the most juice, but we didn't stick around.

And, we enjoyed listening to this strolling accordion musician. He was near us as we were in line for food and sang "That's Amore."

Upcoming Houston Area Festivals

Here are some upcoming Houston area festivals that we are hoping to attend! (photo from Sam Houston Festival in 2006.)

Houston Children's Festival. Dates: April 4th & 5th. We've been to this festival many times since Alexandra was a toddler, but I've never blogged about it! If we get to go this year, I'll post some photos!

Houston International Festival. The focus country this year is Ireland . Dates: April 18th & 19th/25th & 26th. Through their website you can buy tickets half price through the end of March! We've attended this festival only once, in 2006, when the focus country was Jamaica. IFest offers EXTENSIVE Teacher's Guides online. Unfortunately, it looks like you can only access this years and the past 3 years guides, but those include Ireland (183 pages!), Africa, China, and Jamaica. These guides would be helpful for anyone studying those countries. The guides include things like environment, geography, culture and history.

Houston Japan Festival. Dates: April 25th & 26th. We've never been to this festival, but we hope to try it out this year!

Sam Houston Folk Festival . Dates: May 1st - 3rd. We've also been to this only once, in 2006. There are lots of wonderful demonstrations at this festival! I highly recommend it! It's about an hour north of Houston.

Dragon Boat Festival. Date: May 2nd. We've also never been to this one but we learned about dragon boat racing while studying Canada. Then, we found out that Houston has a dragon boat race!!! So, we're really looking forward to this event. Since dragon boat racing originated in Asia, there is also a "celebration of Asian culture" that takes place on the day of the race with dancing, music, and taiko drumming.

Weekend Hike

On Saturday, we went on a family hike. On the way, we happened to pass near a hot air balloon festival and saw over 20 balloons! Alexandra had never seen anything like this and was thrilled.

Then, off to our hike! There was no one around so we had the place to ourselves. We thought these fruit were pretty neat looking. The bush had some very large thorns on it. I don't know what it is, so I'd love it if anyone could help me out on this one!
Alexandra looking into the water to see what she could find. The surface of the water was covered in little tiny green "things" - algae? They kind of looked like tiny round leaves.

Update: This is probably Duck Weed - thanks Theresa!

We found 4 caterpillars on these tall grasses in the water. They'd eaten a lot of the grass. You can see one dark caterpillar near the middle, and a lighter brown near the lower right hand corner. They were big and fuzzy.

There were 3 of these mud creations on trees in one area. Perhaps someone had made skeletons for Halloween? Or maybe this one is a face with a beard?

We have lots of Spanish moss around here. It just hangs from the trees.

The mosquitos were horrible. We had sprayed, and I actually only ended up with only one bite. But, anytime you stopped on the second half of the trail, you could see and hear the mosquitos surrounding you. So, when Alexandra saw this cool "thing" on a leaf, we just picked it up and kept walking so I could photo it out of the trees. At first, she thought it was a caterpillar. Now, I think it is a gall. I've seen photos of some very fuzzy galls like this one. Isn't it neat?

This was the neatest find of the day - found by my husband on a railing. A very cool caterpillar which I haven't been able to identify. He was about 1 inch long.

Update: This is a Puss Caterpillar with a nasty sting! (Thanks, Marjorie & Theresa!) It has a nasty sting. Read more in my post here.


Here's a side-view. Isn't it amazing looking??? What a creative God we have - even just the caterpillars are so different and incredible!

Enjoying our day!

At the end of the day, we headed near the water for some fresh seafood. I had shrimp - yum! Anyway, on our way upstairs, I saw this guy breaking oysters open and then washing them. Now that is fresh seafood!

Rope Walk

At a Fall Festival yesterday, Alexandra got to do a rope walk

"Alexandra"

We are getting ready to practice writing in Japanese and I remembered we'd had Alexandra's name written in Japanese & Chinese at an Asian festival about 1.5 years ago. It is neat to see the difference. "Alexandra" is written in Chinese on the left and in Japanese on the right.

Jamaica & the Houston International Festival

Jamaica was the spotlight country at the Houston International Festival this year. I thought the best part was watching the dancers from Jamaica (we watched 3 different groups) & trying some food from Jamaica.

While we watched one group, they were doing dances with a European influence. I'd never seen anything like it. The dance above (blue dresses) was very slow and the girls were constantly using their fans. They also curtsied and bowed quite a bit.


This next dance was also very different from what I've seen before. The girls wore dresses that had lots of pleats. For the first half of the dance, they sat in chairs & "waved" their skirts. Then, they stood up & moved a little, but the dance was still mainly about waving their dresses. It was neat to watch!

Since pirates were a major part of Jamaica's history, we saw some pirates. One came up behind Alexandra & I thought she was going to be scared, but instead she reached out her hand to shake his hand! He took her to his treasure chest & gave her the biggest "treasure" (necklace) I've ever seen! He must have thought she was special, because it was the largest necklace in the treasure box.


They also had a ship (well, a front of a ship) that Alexandra climbed aboard & pretended to steer. She was fascinated by the skeleton hanging from the front of the ship.

The last group of dancers from Jamaica pretended they were slaves, as that is another large part of Jamaican history. Their singing and dancing was wonderful - unfortunately, my pictures weren't so wonderful.
Here are the Jamaican foods I tried for the first time:

• chicken curry - so-so
• tamarind - I loved it, but very strong - they are related to the date - kind of in a nut shell that they cracked for me & then the fruit is around a large pit
• Guava Jelly - very good (Alexandra didn't think so - she prefered the crackers) - I even bought a jar
• Solomon Gundy (mixed with cream cheese) - I liked this & bought some - Alexandra said she liked it, too, but later changed her mind - very strong & I could only eat a few bites at a time - here is a description I found online: "Solomon Gundy is a smoked red herring made into a spicy fish paste with Scotch bonnet peppers and other seasonings."

Resources:

• Anansi (a Rabbit Ears video)
• Jamaica (a True Book)
• The Houston International Festival has teacher resources available for Jamaica at http://www.ifest.org/ifest2006/education/pdf/exercisesforweb.pdf - we read a lot of stories about Anansi & a few other things about Jamaica

Sam Houston Folk Festival

We went to the Sam Houston Folk Festival on Saturday. There was so much to see and do! I took lots of pictures, so I think I'll just post some and write briefly about each one.



This picture is of a lady making lace! I've never seen it done before, and I was amazed at how time-consuming it looked. I kind of agreed with her (after her demo) that it was more time consuming than difficult. I don't think I'd have the patience for it. :-)


This man was demonstrating how he makes Windsor chairs. We saw lots of craftsmen, but this was something I hadn't seen before.


They also had a Scottish area at the event, because Sam Houston was part Scottish. This is one of the men we met and talked to briefly. Most of them were wearing their tartans.



This is one of Alexandra making a candle. She did several crafts. Her favorites were making a candle and making a necklace the way they used to make ropes.


This picture was taken while watching some African dancing.

We talked to this man for awhile. He was the one that told us they were getting to have a battle re-enactment.

This man was very nice. He showed us how they loaded their rifles and then he & 3 other men fired them (with blanks, of course).

The battle re-enactment. This is the first time I've seen one of these in person! Actually, not quite as exciting as I thought it'd be. But, it was very loud. They even shot the cannon.
Book: We read Sam Houston: American Hero by Crawford - good book

Asian Festival

Yesterday, we went to the Asian Festival at the Houston Zoo. There was an 80% chance of rain, so we were thankful that the rain held off until we left the zoo! And, they had moved the festival events indoors, but we are still grateful that we got to look at the animals without getting wet.

We got to watch several Lion Dances. I had never seen these before and was surprised that only 2 men were "in" each Lion. They did some acrobatic "stunts." For example, the man at the "head" would jump on the shoulders of the man at the "tail." I was also amazed at how the Lion opened and shut his mouth, blinked his eyes, and wiggled his tail. It was wonderful! We were on the front row & got to pet the Lion which is supposed to bring good luck for the coming year!

We also watched a Dragon Dance - the men "carrying" the dragon had to run pretty fast around and around the stage and even through the crowd!

Alex was pleased to learn that she was born in the Year of the Dragon, so she got to see "her dance." And, I was born in the Year of the Dog, so this is "my" year!

Here are some other things we did:

• watched kids perform variety of martial arts - incredible!
• had Alexandra's name written in Chinese & Japanese (in picture, Chinese is on left)
• made a red envelope (filled with money when we got home)
• Mommy made a pink oragami swan
• watched Chinese watercolor painter

Afterwards, we went on the carousel and looked at some animals. (We'd also started the day with a train ride & learned to sit further back to avoid the fumes next time!) We both look forward to attending this event again next year!

Italian Festival

In October, we went to an Italian Festival. We had already eaten lunch so didn't try any of the main dishes, but we did try Italian doughnuts. They came coated in either powdered sugar (Alex's favorite) or cinnamon sugar.

We also watched dancers doing Italian dances - especially tarantella's. A few weeks later, we were studying arachinds and read that the tarantella dances were started because of a ban on dancing! They created the dances saying they were "sweating out the poison from tarantulas." We even went on stage and danced a little! The photos didn't turn out very well because of the lighting. This photos is actually just two of the dancers having fun before the show. They wore tambourines tied to their belts.