And so it begins...

What a fabulous day we had today! Isabella didn't wake up until 9am which is always welcomed... especially by Mommy, unfortunately Mike couldn't enjoy that because he had his Men for God Bible study at 6:30am. Then we met Mike and went shopping for our 'New Year' outfit which was fun. We decided to treat ourselves to shopping in a real mall rather than at a market so it was fun to explore stores we've never heard of. Although we did stop at Brooks Brothers, Columbia, and Polo. (I always get excited to see a store that I'm familiar with.)

(r)evolve was tonight and Isabella and I joined because afterwards three of our girls were going to take us to a 'flea market' that only happens during Chinese New Year (aka CNY). Apparently it's a huge deal and we all wanted to experience this. What a great time we had. The girls took the time to explain CNY traditions, what different characters meant, what the different flowers stood for, and what their families do to celebrate. I was soaking everything in. I love it when they share their culture and lives with us. The market was nothing like I expected. It had all these random inflatable hats and balloons and dog items (it's the year of the dog) as well as flowers. There of course were tons of people but not nearly the crowd we expected. Since we had the girls with us, we decided to try some 'street' food. We had this dessert (in the picture) that basically was sugar (we had plain and strawberry flavored) wrapped in a crepe and dim sum (dumpling) with fish meat inside. The crepe was edible... the dim sum not so much. LOL Mandarin trees are very popular for CNY so we tried to buy one but they were too big to carry home when Mike's still got a bum knee and I was carrying Isabella. So we opted for this plant (in the picture) which is to bring us prosperity. And so we begin CNY. We are planning on attending the parade on Sunday night and fireworks on Monday so I hope that Isabella will co-operate. At least we can watch the parade on TV if she doesn't.

I feel so blessed to be here during this time. I know I was disappointed that our trip to Thailand was cancelled but I'm so excited to be a part of CNY. I've always been interested in learning about other cultures and being here during this time is teaching me so much. Now... if only I were young enough to get laisee (red packets of money).