Welcome, Year of the Dragon

Eggrollmama checking in here to anyone who might still be hanging around...

Before I post pictures and newsy bits about our recent travels to warmer climates, I'm going to make you trudge through the winter with us!  

We'll start back in January, when we celebrated our first Lunar New Year in our new city.  Besides our house helper having two weeks off of work, our children having two months off of school, and the entire city slowing down, we also had the chance to hang out with some of our busy expat friends and slow down ourselves.  

On New Year's Eve (not December 31, remember!) we invited several friends over to play, chat, and (of course) eat.  The guys turned on the Wii, which kept them and the kids nicely occupied while we put the finishing touches on Southwestern Quesadillas, Queso, pizza dip and hello dollies. 

 The entrance to our home - and everyone else's - was decked out in chinese lanters, brightly lit to welcome in the new year.

 After all our friends had left - around 8pm or so, because little kids have bedtimes! - I was just getting my own girls into pajamas when my phone rang.  One of my friends was getting ready to set off the fireworks her family had bought and invited the girls and I to join them.

Even though it meant getting everyone dressed and outside at 8:30pm, it was too hard to say no - it's such a festive time of year, there's people out everywhere, and the abundance of fireworks kinda makes you delirious!  Plus, I want my kids to feel like they're a part of all this, not apart from all of it.

So, here's one of the big boxes that exploded about 25 night-shattering fireworks:

 My friend and her family - I thanked them for including us in their celebration of the new year, and prayed that God's blessing would be on them in special ways in the coming year.

 Of course, the result of so many hundreds of thousands of people shooting off hundreds of thousands of fireworks is tons of this red wrapping - which Abby thought was delightfully like snow!  The girls played and played in it until I finally called it a night and brought them inside....where we watched the whole city light up in revelry.

Welcome, year of the dragon.  We're excited to see what awaits!