We are stretching our Chinese New Year celebrations out the full two weeks this year. This evening we met with other families who have adopted from the same agency as we did to bring in the Year of the Dragon. We have known some of these families since our very earliest days in the adoption process. Tonight we marvelled at how many of us have added children since then! And we gave lots of encouragement to other families who are waiting to receive their children. This group is a big part of our family's support system and we always love being together.
Tonight we started off by breaking up into groups based on the zodiac animals for our birth years and acting out our animal in a sort of Chinese-themed charades. Here are the pigs!
We had a potluck dinner - lots of Asian dishes and a couple of Mexican casseroles mixed in. Rachel had two tea eggs and asked for a third...
A high school Asian club arrived and performed for us. The kids went nuts when they saw the drums and cymbols!
The drumming started and the lion appeared!
Buddha came to wake him up (and mug for the crowd).
And then everything was a blur of motion, accompanied by the pounding heartbeat of drums. Magic.
Rachel didn't quite know what to think. She was content to sit on Daddy's lap at a distance and just watch.
But Katherine wanted to be right in the middle of it all. She has loved dragon dancers since she first saw one at the age of 12 months. And tonight she was thrilled when the lion came right up and danced for her!
Once the lion dancers wore themselves out the kids pretty much mobbed them.
And inspected the lion up close.
For years I have brought crafts for this groups gatherings. (Someone reminded me tonight of the year everyone made pig snouts and curly tails!) We made dragons, of course.
Katherine made hers and then helped other kids. She totally enjoyed helping/bossing little Abraham through his!
As usual, no one really wanted to leave the party and we hung around later than we'd planned. But eventually the hong bao were passed out and we headed home.
It was an evening of good friends and great fun. May the Year of the Dragon bless us all.
