CHINESE NEW YEAR DAY

Celebrating Chinese New Year with Friends

On Chinese New Year Day Sherri, her family and I went into Toronto to the CNE grounds to the Chinese New Year celebrations . We took in a show consisting of the Traditional Lion Dance, as well as several different and very talented displays of the Martial Arts. I have included a clip of the dragon dance. We toured around taking in the different displays of the chinese culture. I bought several beautiful chinese outfits for Ava and Shauna got a strikingly beautiful chinese top which she models in the slide show of pictures from today. After trying out a wide variety of authentic Chinese Cuisine and not doing too well with the "chop stick" part of it we all came home with our own pair of painted chop sticks to practice with. We tryed many different dishes, including several noodle dishes, a couple different dumpling dishes, a seaweed dish, a sticky rice and pork dish wrapped in tea leaves(delicious!), pork and chicken dishes as well as an egg dessert that is deep fryed and almost tastes like sponge cake. We also tryed deep fryed shrimp chips and for dessert something called dragons beard candy....sort of like cotton candy clumps with crushed almonds in the center(very sugary).

When we arrived home it was still early, around 4pm so Sherri invited me over for dinner. They dropped me off at my house so I could feed the dogs and then headed over to the Palmer residence for dinner. When I got there Sherri presented me with a beautiful bouquet of red roses...she said they are for my house as everyone is supposed to have fresh flowers in the house over the Chinese New Year as it is a symbol of growth or rebirth....how thoughtful is this girl!!!....another reason I asked her to accompany me to China to get my daughter. She also stopped at the store on the way home and picked up a cake and had "Happy Chinese New Year" written on it.

Sherri's daughter Shauna who is just 10 years old has embraced the opportunity to be part of the Chinese culture and learn whatever she can about it. As you can see in the slideshow of pictures she has decorated her room with hanging chinese lanterns, her chinese lantern that lights up that she got at the chinese lantern festival in the fall as well as her chinese umbrella. Today while in Toronto she added to her collection, several pig ornaments as it is the year of the pig. While waiting for dinner to be ready we went on the computor and looked up the history of the chinese zodiac and what animal year each of us was born in...Shauna was the year of the Ox.

Not only did she show a keen interest on the Sunday while in Toronto but on Monday morning she wore her new Chinese top to school and addressed the teacher with "Gong Xi Fa Cai"....and when the teacher asked her what that meant and Shauna told her she asked Shauna to stand in front of the class and share with them all about Chinese New Year and everything she has experienced.

I feel very blessed to have such good friends that take such an interest in my daughters culture and want to share it with me and be a part of Ava's life. Shauna, you will make a great surrogate jie jie(older sister) to Ava!