New Year Fun!!

Happy New Year Everyone!! Lunar New Year, that is!! Where I live it is quite a celebration. My family missed New Year's Eve because we were traveling, but I heard it was like nothing I could ever imagine! Since then, there have been fireworks all day every day, especially in the evenings. The beauty of the whole fireworks thing is there are no limits. You can buy and shoot off ANYTHING and ANYWHERE. Which is perfectly wonderful to my husband and son!! This week Rob, Hudson, and Hannah...well and me too, have been throwing colored smoke bombs off our 6th floor balcony. We have also been throwing off poppers which explode when they hit the ground. It is all sorts of fun!

On the 3rd day of the New Year we celebrated with friends. Here is a snapshot of our fun day split into 3 Parts, the Playing, the Eating, the Fireworks!!!

Part 1 - The Playing

We started the day meeting up with some friends at the park across the street from our house. We felt very local becasue our family along with hunderds of other local families were all at the park, playing. Festivities could NOT be complete without blow-up toys. All the kids, big and small alike, played for several hours.
This sweet girl had fun sliding down all the slides! Daddy and daughter enjoying the day! Hudson playing with his two little buddies. Rob won a BB gun with his efforts at the ring toss. He drew quite a local crowd and everyone was cheering him on. And there was COTTON CANDY!!Hannah and her friend were thrilled with their first taste of the sweet stuff in 2 years!I couldn't resist the way our little friend ate her cotton candy. Isn't this what we all really want to do?? Just stick our whole face in it?

Part 2 - The Food

After the fun at the park, we went back across the street where there was a HUGE shao kao area set up. Shao Kao is local BBQ. It isn't Rib Crib, but it is good. They take your chosen meat and rub spices into it, then place it onto the fire. It was particularly fun this evening becasue there was a lot of music playing and the people who were BBQing were all dancing and singing with the music. This place had every kind of meat you can imaine. Beef, chicken, lamb, ostrich, .......and SHARK!!

And no, we didn't eat BBQ'd shark. But this guy was cooking it.We went for the lamb and the beef. We bought 13 sticks of lamb for $1.50 which was plenty of food. As well as a few sticks of beef. It was sooooo good!!Then we found the people who come from the west bringing muslim bread. (I am sure there is a proper name for it, I just don't know it) This guy is pounding out the bread then putting it down in the fire pot beside him to bake. This is the most amazing bread!!! Between the bread and the BBQ, we were well satisfied! Part 3 - The Fireworks

If you remember my post from last year about New Years you will know that my husband looks forward to this event more than any other!! He is a pyromaniac at heart, and loves fire. So, this is his perfect opportunity to be a little boy. And wouldn't you know it, all the men we were with have this same excitement. I don't know who had more fun, the men or the children who were doing fireworks. (All these pictures are dark, but maybe you can see what we were doing)

Here are Hudson and Rob lighting something. Interesting, we were doing all of this in the middle of our apartment complex, with apartments all around. Safe huh?

The four tubes in the middle are where the BIG fireworks were shot. The guys would light them all at once and then an explosion in the sky would take place, just like the BIG Fireworks on the 4th of July. You can see "the dads" quickly walking away waiting for what has been lit to fire. Ummmm.... where are the children? Oh, there they are, trying not to get blown up!!

Here was our firework scene with children and dads all playing Fire together. The moms, were all off to the side watching all that was going on and making sure everyone was left with all 10 fingers and toes!

In closing....

I would like to say that we had such a fun time enjoying and experiencing this holiday like the locals do. I want to share a last picture with you. The people in this picture are all so very special to me (minus a few who came later, BG). I am thankful for every one of them. Sometimes we focus on what we have "left behind" to come here, but for me I have gained special treasures through the people in this picture. You may never know their names, but they are truly wonderful people through which the Father continually blesses my life!