A long day

I'm exhausted and I have a pounding headache. It's way too long of a day, this Chinese New Year party that our agency has. It started at 11, but we left our house around 9:15, as it's at least an hour and 20 minutes to get there if there's no traffic. And if you get there early, you can go in and shop around at the vendors a little.

Before lunch, we met up with other families from our travel group:

Sophie liked this guy in the lobby:

Sophie has been talking all week about meeting Mei Mei, star of a series of DVDs that teach kids Mandarin! Her 8th DVD will be out in March and we can't wait to get it. This year, we bought some Chinese cartoons from her.

Then, we had lunch (Chinese food, of course!) and the entertainment started. The lion dance and dragon dance are everyone's favorite. Sophie stood on my lap and watched intently, clapping and smiling the whole time. She really got into it this year!

We also did some shopping there, picking up a nice silver fortune cookie (about three inches across) that opens to put little notes in, some nice note cards with Chinese characters on them, a book for Sophie and a bracelet for EJ. We won a prize in the raffle again this year - an 8-pack of tickets to Davis Farmland, which has a nice farm and water play park, as well as a giant corn maze in late summer and fall. So, with 8 tickets, we'll be able to visit twice and do it all! We also won an item in the silent auction - it's a beautiful book published by the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) about their International Adoption program.

After we were done at the party, we went to the outlets in Wrentham, since they're just a few miles down the road. I LOVE the Williams Sonoma outlet there! You might remember that last year, I bought a cake pan that made an Easter rabbit. This year, we picked up a pan that makes a standing Santa cake...for only $1.88!!! And then, I bought another cake pan that makes little tea cakes (they call them cakelets) shaped like...vegetables! Yes, don't you think of vegetables when you eat cake? There are little carrots, pea pods, cabbages, and radishes! K just rolled his eyes at me because he knows how completely impractical this purchase was, but it was just too cute to pass up. I also grabbed up a few clearance rack items at Gymboree and Strasburg Children for the girls. We ate dinner at Cracker Barrel and didn't get home until 8:15 PM.

Anyway, some of the photos above were taken by EJ on the new camera she got at Christmas. When I cleaned the photos off, I also found these from Christmas:

EJ on the balcony of the Wang Center when we went to see the Grinch:

Our friends Jose and Brian of San Francisco (formerly of NH), visited over the holidays:

And Pap Pap and Mamaw visited too!