Greek Food Festival

Tonight our family enjoyed some delicious food at The 40th Annual Greek Food Festival.  We ALL (though the jury is still out for Nathan) love Greek Food.  We met our friends, The Comers, and really enjoyed our evening together.  Logan, Sarah and James loved playing around this street pole.  Nathan and Owen love going places in their backpacks.  It allows them to be upright, look around everywhere and still sit down.

 Nathan was almost asleep.  He perked up when he saw the flash.

Preston's work

I thought some of you may enjoy seeing some of Preston's work.  This is the new Children's Hospital in Birmingham.  It is beautiful.  We walked through it this evening while we were downtown.  It was my first time to see it.  It is stunning.

Whole Foods Sample Connoirseur

Today Logan went with me to Whole Foods.  He enjoyed pushing Mater around in the cart and eating the samples.  I am glad to know his taste are sharpening.  Instead of Kraft Cheese Slices, he now has a block of aged cheddar in the fridge.

Zhong Qiu Jie

Today we held our second annual Mid-Autumn Festival Party.  Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Festival  is in a way like our Thanksgiving.  It is a holiday were they look at the Moon with family.  They will travel to be with out of town family and all enjoy special moon cakes together.  Since the students at Samford are without their family at this time we have started hosting this party that allows them to have fun and all be together.  This year we decided to have the party at Dawson.  Everyone really enjoyed playing all the games in the game room and some basketball.  We had some yummy food and all enjoyed some moon cakes.

Park Fun

Friday morning we had a little time to kill before going shoe shopping for Nathan and Owen.  We stopped at Veterans Park for them to swing for a while.  The boys love to swing.  Owen has started saying stop and go while he is swinging, as I am making the swing stop and go.  The weather has been so beautiful lately we are trying to spend as much time outside as possible.

 After picking Logan up from school and before getting Nathan and Owen from the Bell Center, Logan and I spent about 30 minutes at the park.  We had the best time playing together.

Changing my spending

We all hear about sweat shops in China and other areas.  We really don't give it much of a thought because we don't ever really come in contact with these people, so in our lives they bear little if no significance.  Well, this past July I was given the opportunity to meet some of these people in Cambodia.  When I met them they quickly became much more than insignificant.  This short afternoon trip just hours before flying back to the US changed the way our family purchases.

I briefly met a sweet girl who took our little group of four into her home.  Her home was like hundreds of others, all owned by the garment factory, to whom she pays rent out of her wages.  She and three of her friends all lived in a very dark room about 8'x8'.  It has one window, none of which I saw open on any of the houses.  They have a small bathroom, with just a toilet; a small standing shelf and a bed made out of wood slats.  Three of the girls sleep on the bed and one sleeps on the concrete floor.  There was one small florescent light over the window.  Each worker is in the factory 6 days a week, 10 hours a day for about $60-$80 per month.

Stores that use these sweat shops for production include but are not limited to Target, Walmart, Gap, Old Navy.  Just look inside your clothing.  It is surprising how many of mine said made in Cambodia.  If it says "made in Cambodia" it was made in this town.


Our family decided that it is important to support fair wages and acceptable working practices and living conditions.  We are no longer buying clothes from these stores.  In fact, since so many of stores use sweat shops all around the world, we are now buying all of our clothing fair trade.  This way we are spending our money to support honest, acceptable working conditions.  A few of you have asked for some websites for fair trade clothing.  The few that I am shopping off of right now are:
www.fairindigo.com and nationsoutfitters.com.

We are also buying fair trade in other areas such as coffee, chocolate and coconut oil to name a few.  If you are looking for a place to order some great fair trade coffee visit https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/TheBowdens/.  Not only can you find fair trade coffee but the proceeds of the sale go to benefit our friends adoption.

Relaxed

This past Friday night our friend Jane came over to give Preston and I a refresher course on infant massage. Since both boys, especially Owen, have such tight muscles we knew getting in the routine of massaging again would be a good thing. Owen loves his massages and is totally relaxed by the end. I give him the massage between bath and bed. He seems to sleep better and go to sleep faster. Nathan enjoys his massage too. He does think it is pretty funny most of the time.

Saturday

We enjoyed a beautiful Saturday together. We went for a hike at Red Mountain Park. Logan found a big walking stick and enjoyed walking with it. Nathan was so excited he made his "excited noise" for about 5 minutes. Owen kept talking a lot. I am glad all three boys really enjoy time outside. Preston and Owen watched a lot of the Georgia Tech game together. Since today is National Ice Cream Cone Day Logan enjoyed his ice cream in a cone.

Owen is really talking a lot now. A few of his new words are: bite, bye bye, Mama help, wow, yeah, eat, walk walk...and probably a few more I can't remember right now. I am really proud of him.