Chinese New Year....early

This was a bitter sweet event.  We've held it at Oriental Express from the beginning and they were closing their doors forever! :(  We had it early so we could have it there one last time.  We had some new people join us and missed those that couldn't make it plus our regulars, Kris and Jerry, ended up helping serve so they weren't really with us.  It was fun but sad.  I'll miss this tradition a lot!

year of the snake

today we rang in the year of the snake by celebrating chinese new year and our traditional location, oriental express.  we celebrated with some of our favorite people.  we had the biggest turn out yet and it was wonderful!  in attendance were doug and opal; roger, alyse, victoria, royal, and zach; sandee, spencer and kassidee; ryan, amanda, lorelai and lovina; ken and laura; mary jo; gordon and carol; uncle steven and topher; ryan; adam; erina; judy and her mom ann; ben, nikki and cannon; kris and matt; jenna and casey; the sister missionaries, plus me, kg, flower and river! 39 people!  we also feel like jimmy, chau and their kids, sara and dean are like family which is why we love to go to their restaurant.  they were part of our party, too, as they served us.  in fact, the other day flower told kg that she considers jimmy and chau her chinese mom and dad. :)  i thought that was so sweet.   they also very generously gave each child in attendance a red envelope with a $2 bill inside. 
we had a wonderful time.  i'm so grateful for all these people who love us and our girls and support us in our efforts to celebrate flower's culture. 
(i gave kg the camera because i sat myself in a corner to minimize the neck pain.  he was having trouble with the camera so we didn't get a lot of photos but i appreciate his efforts!)

Happy Chinese New Year 2009

Friday was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.
Let's start at the beginning.
The girls and I were out of the house at 9:00 am on our way to Cafe De Paris. Kris and I decided to take Audie and Amanda to breakfast for their birthdays. I met them all there. It was so nice to talk and be with them. The food was yummy! Perfect way to start out the day. I love both those girls for completely different reasons on top of the fact that they are both amazing mothers and they inspire me. I am grateful for their friendships.
When we were headed to the car we ended up having to run, almost into traffic! I was the next car in line for the parking Nazi to give me a ticket! She had just set the ticket on the car behind me and was rolling up to mine when I unlocked my car. Phew! She gave me a nasty scowl as she passed. We just smiled and waved. It took a lot of effort to make all my fingers stay up with the middle one as I waved. Hello?! Running with an over sized diaper bag, three year old and 2 month old in a car seat! Be nice all ready.

From there I followed Kris to Riverstone school. Barbara Morgan was there to talk about her space shuttle experience. It was pretty cool. She told some pretty interesting and fun things. Flower loved all the kids around her! I'm really glad we went.

We left there at noon, going separate ways. I had an hour to kill so we went to DK donuts to meet my friend Tammy from Parklane. It was a last minute thing and it was perfect. We sat and talked and she met River for the first time while Flower stayed busy eating a donut.

After that we went to my thyroid doctor to have blood drawn. Yippee. It's been six weeks since they sucked my blood last and I could hardly wait to get back in there! Gag. Flower is still fascinated with watching blood going into the tube. It cracks me up. Here's hoping these tests will show the levels we need!

Finally at around 2:00 we made it back to Kris' house. By then we were all tired and ready for naps. I went to our room :) downstairs. I love laying in bed with the girls and then watching them sleep. Sweet, sweet moments. Especially when they keep wiggling and rolling to the point they are almost on top of each other and therefore unknowingly cuddling. :)
Soon enough we were all awake again and just chatted the day away. Did I mention that the reason for this entire day originated around the need/want to strip Kris' wallpaper? Didn't happen. :-D But what a lovely day we had. And it was beautiful outside. I typically don't get out of the house until I go to work in the afternoon. I just don't like the cold. So having this entire out was good for all of us!

At 6:00 we left for Oriental Express. Kris road with me and met Jerry there, while my sister picked up KG and he met us there. :) Monday, January 26th was the start of Chinese New Year. We celebrated tonight with lots of friends and family at Oriental Express. Where else would we celebrate?! :) Among the crowd was my parents, my sister and family, KG's grandma, dad and uncle, the Pye's, The Sturgill's, four missionaries, and Kathy.


We had such an incredible day and night and are grateful to everyone who came to celebrate with us! Jimmy and Chow were gracious as always.
The missionaries were a last minute thing. We got a message at Kris' house that they were coming to town for a zone conference and needed a place to stay. I hooked them up with an executive suite at our apartment complex for the night. It's a three bedroom and basically set up like a hotel room. The one of the left is Elder Chicken that was in our area for 7 months before he was transferred to another area. He's the one that was spoiled with OE several times so he was thrilled to eat there again. We were all excited to see him again.

When the night came to an end and we were pulling into the complex I got a call from Lynnette. She told me the funniest story that made me wet my pants I was laughing so hard. She had gotten a call from a tenant. This tenant, D, is the nicest person and very interesting to talk to. She has a big heart. The other side of that is she is very liberal and covered head to toe in tattoos. She tells Lynnette, "You're never going to believe what just happened to me. I walked into the my apartment to find two Mormon missionaries kicking back on my sofa!" Oh crap. The missionaries went into the wrong apartment. I immediately went to the right apartment to see if they'd found it. They were there and we had a good laugh! They thought it strange that I would hook them up with a place with various soda cans and beers can laying about. Tattoo magazines adorning the side table. Toys strewn on the floor, because they have to young boys, and closets and kitchen fully stocked. Thank heavens there was no porn in sight! But they were grateful for the place to stay and weren't going to question. They both dropped their backpacks in the bedroom and one had gotten into his pajamas while the other was still in his suite with his missionary tag. They kicked their feet up on the coffee table to relax for the night. When she walked it she was slightly shocked to see someone sitting on her sofa, let alone Mormon missionaries and dropped what she was holding and said, "Oh Shit!" Both parties were startled and neither knew what to do. I'm not really sure how they figured the whole mess out but it ended well and we could not stop laughing. I then went to D's apartment to make sure she was ok and explain everything. We laughed some more. She said she thought for sure she was being struck down and being sent a serious message since she new her doors were locked. She was dumbfounded to see them sitting there. (The fact that their key opened her apartment is not good and not typical! That will be remedied.) She said it ended well and they had a nice talk and she asked if she could get them anything before she sent them on their way.
I'm still laughing. Can you imagine walking in to your house to see to men kicking back on the sofa?! And then for her having them be Mormon missionaries was over the top. She said this is now going to be a favorite story to tell. :)
Perfect way to end the evening.

Super Saturday.

Flower was spoiled with fun parties on Saturday. She attended her first primary activity in morning. I took the girls while KG slept for the day. It was a Pancakes and Pajamas theme. They wore their jammies and took their blankets and pillows.
She wore her new butterfly jammies and took the blanket we sent her when she was still in China.
When they arrived they had a big pillow fight. Then they ate pancakes while snuggled on blankets watching Ratatouille. Not wanting to go all the way home I hung in the hallway and gabbed with Amanda, Julie and Kris.

We left there and made a stop at Blockbuster for some free rentals. Then we went to Old Navy to exchange some shirts for a smaller size. Finally we went to Walmart to purchase a birthday gift for Flower's preschool friend. She was invited to her first birthday party! (other then kids of our friends) That also meant I was essentially dropping her off at an unknown home. She's growing up. When I got the phone call from Benjamin's mom I actually got choked up. Lame. :) I am just loving every tiny little mile stone that she hits and being invited by school friends to their birthdays is a big one. She was so excited and help pick out a dinosaur gift for him. I dropped her off at 1:00 pm. She ran in and didn't look back.

Not wanting to go all the way home, I too River to Souper, Salad for lunch. I really liked it. It was kind of awkward not having someone to talk to though. :) I then sat in the car and read emails and blogs and dozed until 2:30. When I picked her up she was so excited to give me play by play of the party. She had fun!

We went home and layed down for naps with the intention of going to Sydney's baptism at 5. I ended up falling asleep around 4:00 thinking I'd wake up at 4:30 and get everyone up and out the door. Didn't happen. KG woke up at 6:45 and came looking for us only to find us all still asleep! KG couldn't believe he slept that long and I couldn't believe that me and the girls napped that long. Apparently we all needed sleep! I felt terrible for missing the baptism. :(

The true highlight of the weekend happened that night!
At 9:00 pm we went Oriental Express. They have been doing their Chinese New Year celebration dinner for the last few days. It's $22 a plate and includes several courses. That's a little steep for us especially knowing we wouldn't like everything on the menu. I was thrilled when we were invited to go at closing and eat all the leftovers for free!! I looked forward to it all day and it ended up being way more then expected!
Check out this table.
I figured we'd go and they'd set everything out and we could just pick at it and taste what we wanted. No. They had a big table set up, each having our own plate and all the left over food was served as though we'd ordered it. We ate as much as if we'd gone to the dinner. Jimmi and Chow and their kids sat and ate too. I also thought there was going to be more people there but it was just the Sturgill's, us, another family that is close with Chow, and Nadine who is like Chow's mother. I just felt so lucky to be included. The food was amazing but the company couldn't be beat. It was so fun to sit around that big table and talk and get to know some new people and just enjoy the whole thing. Knowing it was so late made it that much more fun.

I have been given lots of reasons this week to reflect on our friendships. My heart is so full right now with love. We have some truly close friends that we love dearly and who are an extension of who we are. They are like family. We are continually grateful for all they do for us. But I was also reminded this week that we have lots of friends and acquaintances that we may not do things with outside of church or certain situations(like the restaurant) but they support us at every turn and it's nice to know that there's so many people that rally around us and are happy for us. It really lets me know that we would have unlimited support in an unhappy time as well if we ever needed it. It feels really good to have such an amazing support group around us. I'm not really sure why it's affecting me so much this week or why it's touched me so much but I can say that I'm happy and my heart is full and that's all that matters.

Happy Chinese New Year!

I know that it started last Thursday but we did our big celebration tonight. It was such a fun evening and we're grateful to all those that came to celebrate with us! We all ascended on our favorite Chinese restaurant, Oriental Express. Those in attendance were: Ken and Laura. Ryan, Amanda and Lorelai. Doug and Opal. Steve and RaeAunn. Elder Hays and Elder Fletcher. John, Lisa, Josh, Isaac and Topher. Jenn, Cliff, Benjamin, and Madison. Rhonda and Eric. Roger, Alyse, Lauren, Torta, Royal, and Zach and two Elders. Sandee, Gregg, Spencer and Kass. We had 37 people including KG, Flower and me.


They did an excellent job considering each family had a separate ticket, all arrived pretty much at the same time and all ordered something different. Almost everyone was wearing something red. We had red paper on the table to write Flower messages. When we arrived Chow, the owner, brought out a pretty dress for Flower and dressed her right away. So thoughtful. We had a good time just being around those we love! Thanks again to all those that came to celebrate this special holiday with us! And thank you thank you thank you for the nice poem from Ryan and Amanda, lots of messages and the special frame made by Torta, that were given to Flower! She also got a cute teddy bear holding chocolate from KG's parents and a card shaped like a purse from my parents. :O)



Here's the dress in full view.
We also inherited an extra child for the evening. Isaac has wanted to spend the night at our house for some time. It finally worked out tonight, impromptu, because KG has the week off (yay!) so he can entertain the two of them tomorrow while I work! :) Flower was delighted to have someone new to play with her kitchen! They are now snuggled on the sofa watching Beauty and the Beast, courtesy of Ryan and Amanda, which Flower has never seen before.
PS-I just love living so close to family and friends! We went home with arm loads of stuff that was either being returned to us because we lent it out or that we were borrowing...like lots of disney movies from my brother and SIL so we can introduce Flower to new princesses, scripture music/videos from my sister that her kids have outgrown, magazines my sister has read, books and Season 7 of Gilmore Girls from my mother in law! It's awesome to be able to share things and cycle them around! :o)