Gong Xi Fa Cai! Year of the Pig


It's Chinese New Year! Plothow's second favorite holiday after Halloween. We're a funny lot. 

This year is the year of the pig or boar. It is the last animal in the Chinese zodiac. Next year it starts over with the rat. 

The kids have CNY off from school, which is the best! We kept with our tradition of heading to Chinatown to see the sparklers go off to start the CNY celebrations. We went with a bunch of friends this year. It was a great group of kids, and moms. Everyone had a buddy to stick with. We braved the extreme crowds and had a wonderful time. 

I have only been to see the sparklers go off. One mom knew Chinatown well. We walked to a restaurant, which allowed us to really experience CNY a lot better than we have in NYC. We saw lion dances. The kids all had the red envelop to "feed" to the lion. I was told that is a new tradition that is done. The kids all got poppers, or silly string to use to celebrate with. There was confetti falling from the skies, covering the ground. It looked like there had been hundreds of parties with the amount of confetti that was every where. It was a really exciting atmosphere. 

The restaurant we went to had our favorite traditional food, noodles, soup dumplings, etc. Our bellies were in heaven.

  






We were planning on doing some more CNY activities, but illness has prevented us from doing anything lately. Health has not come our way yet, this new year. Hope it has for you. 

Wishing you health and prosperity this new year!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Traveling Half Way around the World

Image
We made it to Manila! We flew over the US and the Pacific Ocean to get here. Our total travel time was 55 hours. It was long but surprisingly not bad at all. Cosette was an angel and the Haneda Airport in Tokyo was like a hotel. If those two things had been any different attitude in writing would not be so positive. This odessy of a journey begun way before our first flight. Packing up our apartment for our subletters took a lot longer than we supposed it would. So instead of being refreshed and ready for the long trip over we were tried and I did not want to get out of bed. We got enough sleep to keep on going till our flight from NYC to San Fransicso where we tried to rest. That flight for me was the worst. Cosette did sleep but was up for a lot of it. The plane was cramped and Lyndon and I were seperated by the aile. Thankgoodness for kind and patient people who sat next to us. Playing at the San Fransico airport.   Our flight to Japan was awesome. We had a
Read more

Remote Learning Part 1

Image
Remote learning is over for now, thank goodness. We have been doing remote learning since March 20. We are experts at google classroom, zoom meetings, and google meets. It's been rough, but we did it!  This post is long and detailed about what each kid had to do everyday for school. It was intense. The kids did wonderfully. Their teachers are amazing! They worked around the clock to learn all the new technology, meeting with students individually. I received personal phone calls from them asking what they could do to help and also talking to my kids. I am so grateful for the teachers they had this year.  All three kids participated in remote learning. Each grade/teacher did something different. What they all had to do was answer and attendance question by noon, read for thirty minutes a day, and I-ready (an assessment program that helped determine where they were in math and reading).  Third Grade: Cosette's assignments were what she was doing in school. She completed two huge
Read more

Valentine's Day

Image
Happy Valentine's Day! This has become one of my favorite holidays in the last few years. This year especially I am really into it. It probably has to do with my sweet Lyndon who proposed to me on V-Day four years ago. Since then he has made Valentine's Day a fun and special day. He always surprises me with something fun. Usually we go eat some where fabulous and go see a ballet or opera. He likes to do something cultural on this speical day. This year I am getting into the spirit more. Cosette can do a lot more things. We made special Valentine's for our families and made yummy cookies. She kept sneaking cookie dough and eating it. She is my daughter.  The finished product waiting for Lyndon. I went to the Cake Boss Bakery last year to get Lyndon something for V-day and was inspired to make the dark chocolate bowls filled with chocolate covered strawberries. It was a lot easier that I anticipated. Oh, and that cloth on the table are the pajama pants
Read more