Celebrating The Lunar New Year

We began celebrating the Lunar New Year last Sunday. I guess that would have been New Year's Eve.


Many of our church members gathered together to make Chinese dumplings. Yum!
Lin-Ley quickly got in on the action. The elders there showed her what to do and she got to work.






This was one of her first dumplings. She was so proud!

Dallas wasted no time. He grabbed a rolling pin and started rolling out the dumpling dough. He rolled out one dumpling for every three or four the ladies around him finished. Of course they are pros.

After running around for a while and sampling the already cooked dumpling Tru decided he wanted in on the action. The rolling pins looked especially tempting. The "play dough" (as he called it) looked fun.

First he gets a lesson on how to roll the dough.




Then... like father - like son.











In the end it was best to leave it to the pros.

It was a fun time! Of course in the end we got to eat as many dumplings as we wanted!!

YUMMY!

The next day I took a vacation day and took Lin-Ley to a Lunar New Year celebration.

First stop - photo op.

The first performance was by the Chinese Opera of Washington DC.

Here is the Monkey King.















The Monkey King was full of mischief. He was so funny.

Here is the Monkey King's enemy. They fought for a while and then in the end discovered that they could get into mischief together.













This is a Chinese Princess waiting in the courtyard for her love.

Their costume were just beautiful. So ornate and detailed.

When this Princess began singing Lin-Ley leaned over to me and said, "Mom, that lady is making some weird noises. What is that?" I told her that was the lady singing and she gave me a look. It made me laugh out loud.

Members of a Korean dance school performed a fan dance. It was beautiful.

Many of my photos came out dark and I had to lighten them. Unfortunately many of my photos do not do justice to the beautiful costumes the performers were wearing.

A martial arts school performed a traditional dragon dance.

Here the dragon tries to wake Buddha.

Another professional troupe from Washington DC perform a dragon dance.

After the many, beautiful performance there were boothes throughout the community center with activities for the kids. They could make a kite, have their names written in Chinese by a master calligrapher, make necklaces and wall hangings, sample Chinese food, as well as many other activities. And don't forget the face painting....

While waiting to have her face painted Lin-Ley found another Chinese Princess.

Finally!

She was beautiful - even if she did say so herself!

All smiles!!

After a long day of celebrating it was time to move the party to Tru's school. Lin-Ley and I had a mini Lunar New Year celebration with the kids in Tru's class. They had colored pictures of dragons the week prior and over the weekend we had made them all dragon masks. Lin-Ley read them a book, we acted out all of the activities of the New Year celebration and then led the kids in a Dragon Parade. Over all I think the kids enjoyed it but they are only three years old!

After that it was time for dinner. There was really only one choice - Chinese Food!

Unfortunately Dallas could not join us. Because he was at Disney World! Yes - Disney World! He insists that it was all business... The kids missed him for a week but he brought them presents so they did not mind so much.

And that was our Lunar New Year celebration. Of course the celebration traditionally lasts 15 days so I'm sure we can find a reason to continue the celebration for another week.

新年快乐

Xīnnián kuàilè

Happy New Year