Month: November 2012

Thanksgiving Food and HNY Photos

November 28, 2012

Enjoy these photos of our Thanksgiving brunch and dinner, and the Hmong New Year festival from last week and the weekend.

{Brunch at FIL’s home}

{The feast at Mom & Dad C’s home}

{My bowl of Vietnamese grilled beef vermicelli salad…so delicious!}

{Sister’s BF carving the turkey}

{An older lady in a beautiful yellow-colored Hmong cultural outfit}

{Young girls chatting after their dance performance}

{This guy is one amazing guitarist!}

Thanksgiving

November 21, 2012

Yesterday, Kida’s class celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians, having a big feast, and playing some games.  In the photo, the student who stood the longest on one leg wins.  Kida (that’s her feet in the front) didn’t win but she held on for a very long time.

This Thanksgiving, the family will be spending it with the extended family as we do almost every year with lots of food and laughter.

I hope you and your family will enjoy this day together.

Another Try At Photo Restoring

November 15, 2012

This month the Hmong New Year is once again alive with festivities, food, and culture around parts of the world.  Here, in Colorado, the Hmong New Year always takes place the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I hope to go again for the food, performances, and to see my younger sibling’s band, One Sun One Moon (OSOM), play on stage.

In honor of this special occasion, I want to share something I had worked on earlier this year.  It’s an old photo that I love and tried to restore.

The people in the photo are my uncle (Mom’s older brother), his wife, and a relative.  It was taken in Laos maybe close to 40+ years ago.

Below is the before image.  Above, I pretty much only cleaned up the scratches and crinkles on their faces.

My uncle still lives in Laos.  I don’t know very much about him, his wife, and their family.  It is sad that I don’t know because I wish I did.  Once in a while I’ll get some information from Mom but I don’t know any of their names and can’t put names to faces.  Mom is the second youngest of 7 siblings (I think there are 7…I don’t even know for sure!) and she is in her early 60’s.

Sometimes I find it strange to be brought up in a completely different culture (American) than the one my parents grew up in.