Chinese New Year

We attended a special Chinese New Year event at our church last night - it was a social event for the 1st/2nd grade learning community classes, of which A is a part. It included a Chinese food potluck (for which I contributed sweet & sour tofu with red bell peppers and carrots) and a peformance by the Portland Lee's Association Lion Dancers, which was fun and super high-energy! Here's E admiring the lion dancers' costumes as they got set up. I got some better photos of the actual peformance and full costumes, but I just loved E's little hand holding onto the bench here, and his intent concentration. The kids both wore the outfits their aunt and uncle sent them from China at Christmastime, and were very excited about that.

After the celebration we came home and were delighted to find that although the news coverage of the Olympics opening ceremonies had started at 7:30, the ceremony itself hadn't actually begun. We let the kids stay up late to watch with us, and the excitement was palpable. A was really interested in the flags and the number of athletes each country had. E was mostly just excited to be staying up past his bedtime!