Thursday, February 7, 2008

Happy Chinese New Year- Year of the Rat!

Happy Chinese New Year! It's the Year of the Rat. Luckily, the twins were born before today so they are the Year of the Pig (which is a very good year). Poor JR is the year of the sheep, which is a terrible year. The Chinese were always upset that JR was a sheep. My doctor that delivered the twins is American-Chinese, and she was telling me that if you have two people that are Year of the Pig in the same family and that are 60 years apart, it is called a "Golden Pig" and that is supposed to be really special.
Jason and I miss China more on Chinese New Year than any other time of the year. It’s the equivalent of our Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, and Easter all rolled into one. We really miss all the fun we had (and the week vacation)! Here's a little trip down memory lane of our last Chinese NY, I believe it was the Year of the Dog...


Here's JR and Madeline and Katie and me in our Chinese NY costumes for our clubhouse NY party. The clubhouse management asked us to dress up and be part of their show. I'm still upset that Katie got the pretty yellow dress and I got the red tent with a wine glass stuck on my head. Look how much cuter her outfit is than mine! My costume is from the Yuan dynasty, which must be Chinese for "ugly outfit that make you look fat"!

Gary and Anita had a super fun Chinese NY "blow out" at their house. Here's JR modeling a few of the fireworks that the husbands had purchased. You can see that they are the "professional" kind you would see at a fireworks show here in the US. In China, you just buy them on the street corner. And there's Jason and Andy so proud of the extra fire extinguishers the guards brought to us. Why the extra fire extinguishers? Well.....


Because the guys had already set one of Gary and Anita's trees on fire earlier in the night! Not to worry, the guards rushed in and put it out fairly quickly.

Since Chinese NY is always in January or February it's always cold. You can see how bundled up we are. That's me, Katie, Melissa, and Anita sporting our warmest winter wear. Much better than the costumes, don't ya think? JR wanted to make sure I posted a picture of him with all his older blonde "M" women...That's Madeline, Madison, and Meredith. I think they were all about to go ice skating in this picture. It's really hard to travel during New Year because all the Chinese go home to see their families, so planes and trains are really booked up. Since we got a week holiday and there was no work or school, we were always looking for fun things to do that week in Beijing.

Happy Year of the Rat!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy Chinese New Year to you! Did you decorate and plan a special meal? (with all of your spare time-ha ha) I enjoyed your pix "down memory lane". Lu

Anonymous said...

Happy chinese new year! The pictures are cute. JR has really grown. What a difference a year makes. Mom

Me Me Me said...

Gong He Fat Choy! ( I hope I got that right-G is learning Chinese so it might be wrong, even though he's doing really well!).

Anonymous said...

Last New Years was a great time. We miss it too. Love the pictures!