Fried bananas anyone?

Around 3:00 this afternoon I started thinking about what to make for dinner.  Each month I make a list of meals to make, and buy all of the groceries for all of the meals in one quick swoop through the grocery store, because I detest grocery shopping. Yes, I still have to run in (or send a child or husband) for more of the perishable items, but all-in-all, I have everything I need right at home.

 I looked through my list of meals and decided to make a Thai dish that I had never made before.

Then I thought how fun it would be to make a cultural evening around the dinner since it was Family Home Evening night.  So I got dinner going and then got online and pulled up a bunch of tabs about different aspects of Thailand's culture.  Then I let the kids know that they could each pick one of the categories and teach the rest of us all about it.  We ended up having such an enjoyable evening!!

Isabelle taught us a lot about etiquette and Buddhism:

Kami ran to the library and checked out some books on Thailand and then shared some things that she found to be interesting from a travel guide that was chuck full of interesting pictures. The kids couldn't help running over to see what she was talking about:

Maddie is being impressed by the women who put bracelets around their necks to make their necks as long as possible

Maddie taught us about their traditional clothing - you can see what Nolan thought about that:

Nolan taught us about houses in Thailand.
Some of the reports got a bit too long-winded for two of my boys to sit patiently through. Abram buried Caden in the girl's "Thai clothing" and then started jumping on him:

 Caden ended the night by making fried bananas and homemade ice cream.  Those of us who like bananas thought it was surprisingly delicious! (We already knew the ice cream would be!)

This was so much fun and so educational that we just might make learning about other cultures a weekly tradition for awhile!