Celebrating Chinese New Year ~ Feb. 9th

For the second year in a row, we woke up with anticipation of seeing our fellow adoptive families, as FCCBC once again organized a banquet in Chinatown at the Floata Seafood Restaurant. We downplayed the "Year of the Snake", as snakes and I do not coexist at all...Nora was excited about wearing her "Chinese dress" despite the tight neck buttons, and tolerated having her hair braided, with assistance from Lewis to keep her head straight!

"Gung Hay Fat Choy"

The local girl guide troupe were assisting the children with making "snake" crafts, much cuter than the real thing!

Nora and Anna

Julie and Anna joined us with the "God of Fortune". He scared most of the
younger girls there but eventually Nora resorted to calling him "that funny guy"
after he handed her a red envelope with chocolate money in it. :)

Anna awaits the 8 course meal...

Lovely Isabella, Nora's fellow Gao-girl.

Our table, with Isabella's family from Whistler and Jenna's family from Victoria.

Julie was a good sport as she doesn't care for Chinese seafood much!

Happy to see our friends again.

Nora, Anna and Jenna storm the stage to view of the Lion dancers.

Isabella, Jenna and Nora...a colourful parade of cuteness!

The Lion dance wasn't so frightening this year, although it was just as loud!

Awaiting a picture together...

Love it!

Nora and Jenna overcome their timidity to touch the resting lion!

A true party girl... having so much fun.

Listening to a performance of Chinese instruments.

A chance to make "beautiful" music as well...

The best part of our afternoon out was the news that Isabella's family would host an adoption reunion in July at their parents' home in Kamloops, which we attended in 2011. Definitely something to look forward to, and we'll make sure not to have any drums or cymbals on hand seeing as we got our share of that today. :) And as you can imagine, our little princess was sound asleep not too long after starting the car ride home...