The Year of the Dragon

Today marks the beginning of the Year of the Dragon - it's time to celebrate Chinese New Year! As it fell on our day off, today was actually a rather nice day at home. We couldn't go outdoors much because it was still pouring

quite a lot of rain outside!

We did a lot of the standard things for Chinese New Year, such as eat noodles for lunch. As you can see here, we made sure the noodles were nice and long. This symbolizes long and healthy life. I'm not entirely sure who made that up. It was probably somebody who sold noodles, who made a fortune afterwards. Regardless of how the tradition started, as you can see here, it's also kind of fun to hoist the noodles way up high in the air and let them dangle over your mouth, too! This was just a quick snack at lunchtime - the meal we had later on tonight was a much larger feast. We'll get there soon enough though. First, let's have another game of Go Fish!

Madison loved playing this with Nana, and actually was teaching her how to play again, as it's been quite some time since she last played Go Fish. Madison had such a great time playing with Nana: she's really enjoyed seeing her grandparents here this week.

MADISON'S BOOK CLUB

We did some other things with Madison to recognize the start of the new year: Daddy read several children's books about the subject, including "Chin Chiang and the Dragon's Dance," a sweet book about a boy doing the dragon dance with his grandfather to celebrate the Year of the Dragon.

This is a nice book to read, particularly on Chinese New Year. The neat thing is the timing - once every twelve years it is the start of the Year of the Dragon, which is when this story takes place. And today, of course, was that day. We read it together on the couch along with a few other books. This story is encouraging and a confidence builder. It is also a story about reaching out to help others. Finally, it has plenty of Chinese culture within it, complete with some nice artwork. Madison enjoyed this one, as well as the others.

We also watched Kai-Lan's Chinese New Year episode, where the main characters learn teamwork and each carry the dragon. But soon it was time to head off to eat. Here's a photo of everyone at PF Chang's for dinner: notice how Madison is wearing her pirate queen outfit. She really wanted to wear that to dinner tonight, and we thought: why not!?

We actually bought this costume for her year or two before we met her - it was on the discount rack at the Disney Store after Halloween. We were thinking it might be a fun outfit for Madison someday, even though we hadn't met her yet. Years later, sure enough: she loves this outfit. So much that she wore it to dinner tonight!

We had ourselves a big feast this evening, with dumplings, egg rolls, crab wantons and more. Always there are leftovers. There was just too much food! It was a nice time going out to eat with family, and a chance to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

When we got home, it was time to stuff envelopes: red envelopes, that is. We'll be giving some of those away tomorrow, as it is a tradition to give red envelopes with coins in them. Instead of coins, our flair is to use chocolate coins. Also, we taped chopsticks to the envelopes to make a nice looking presentation. Madison will be handing some of these out tomorrow, and the rest out when she meets up with the rest of the family this weekend.

It was a very foggy night tonight coming home. But it's been that way all month. Dense, thick fog - the kind you usually associate with a mystery from 1800's London. And the rain that came with it was heavy, pouring down all morning long. So far, it's been a very wet year. Ba-Ba and Nana came from Florida where it has been sunny and 80 degrees - and up here, it's been cold and wet all the time. But despite the weather, it's been a warm time together, especially for today. We had a wonderful time making memories together.