Jeff Meller
Classmate Profile
18 Sept 13
508 words
It can be more challenging to travel with children than without
them. But there is no more rewarding gift
for a family.
Shari Wong knows.
Despite the additional effort, Shari travels the world from her home in
Las Vegas to educate her children and bind her family together. So far she and
her husband, Tim, 46 and 52 respectively, have vacationed with their young children
to Alaska, China and the Mediterranean.
There are many rewards to traveling with
children: seeing our world through their curious, innocent eyes and unconstrained
family time without the distractions of busy lives at home.
Some rewards hatch serendipitously when
parents let children lead. In Alaska, Alex, then 6, and Lauren, then 4, wanted to
see the Klondike Gold Rush. Tim and
Shari followed the kids’ instincts. In the
Liarsville gold fields they learned from a grizzled panhandler to “dip for
water, shake, tip, dunk, swirl.” Tim
says that the children experienced the ruggedness required by pioneer life “as
we walked through the camp visiting merchants and stores and meeting men and
women … re-enacting life in the 1800’s.”
Not every choice works out. When young children travel naps may not
follow the usual schedule. On the Alaska
trip Shari and Tim wanted to take a relatively expensive helicopter ride to
see the Mendenhall Glacier. The entire
family donned flight suits and headphones, the latter so they could hear the
pilot over the roar of the engine. As they
hovered over the glacier Shari and Tim were enthralled. They looked at the children: “Both were sound asleep,” Shari recalls.
China with kids was a special adventure. Shari’s parents are first generation
Chinese-Americans; Tim’s parents are second generation. Tim’s parents joined the trip. His grandparents
had taken Tim to China when he was young so his parents were maintaining a
family tradition. They explored the elaborate
Forbidden City in Beijing and the viewed the innumerable terra cotta warriors in
Xi’an. “I don’t know if the list of
wonders of the world ever is updated,” Shari observes, “but if it is, this
should be added to the list.”
This year the family took a Mediterranean
cruise. The kids now are 8 and 10. For Alex “Rome … in third grade came to life
as we walked along the Appian Way and toured the ruins of the Colosseum,” Tim recalls.
At the Vatican they saw the new Pope Francis I celebrate mass in St.
Peter’s Square, blessing people and animals alike.
Before the trip Shari borrowed Italian tapes from
the library. At a festive party in Rome she
ordered the meal in Italian and conversed comfortably with the waiter. The kids were amazed: “Our mom speaks Italian!”
reports Marivi Mullen, Shari’s sister, reinforcing the value of their own
language lessons at home.
The cruise also went to Greece and then Turkey,
where they celebrated Lauren’s birthday.
Perhaps traveling with Alex and Lauren was extra work, but Lauren never
will forget the gift of travel celebrating her 8th birthday in
Istanbul.
Where you were on your eighth birthday?
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