Multicultural lunch outing

I, Page, have been blessed by having a 4th grader at Bethany (that would be Wade). I found out the end of last year that the mothers of this grade periodically have lunch together! I told one mother I had met in the spring to please include me for the next gathering. Well, last Friday was the first get-together for this school year. The group decided to let Dennis' mom take us to a Russian resturant since they are from Russia (his dad is a scientist at the university here). It was a wonderful lunch! She had made a Russian salad for us all as an appetizer, and then we had some soup and one of four choices of entrees. I chose the meatballs which were delicious! I learned that most Russian dishes use beets in some form, and they often use sour cream. While we were having lunch, we realized the moms present represented six different countries: Taiwan (of course), Korea, Australia, Russia, India, and America (that was me!). Most of the moms spoke Chinese as well as English, plus the language of their own country. I could tell the mom from Korea knew about as much Chinese as I do - not much! I didn't talk a lot, but really enjoyed listening to the ladies talk and joke with each other. Right now I'm just "Wade's mom", but I look forward to building deeper relationships with them. Ladies all over the world are alike - we love to get together and laugh, talk about our kids, and just enjoy each other! We decided we will have lunch once a quarter together, and the next time we will go to an Indian resturant and let the two Indian moms show us the ropes! Next time I will bring my camera!