Happy New Year!

Happy Year of the Rabbit!

The official Chinese New Year comes on Thursday, but we had our 2nd Annual Chinese New Year Extravaganza this past Saturday night. What a great party! Our small house has never been so full of people.

Here's Lin and Ruby, making the Jiao Zi, or dumplings. Ruby stuffed and folded about 5 successfully. Lin and I did about 90. She and I can whip through those things pretty fast!

The featured dishes, all prepared by Dave. In the wok at the far left are the pan-fried noodles. In the back row left-right: black pepper chicken, lemon chicken, dumplings. And in the front row left-right: salmon with black bean sauce, beef with oyster sauce, and sweet and sour cabbage. Not pictured but also consumed: egg rolls prepared by our friend Kerri, and tomato-eggdrop soup prepared by our friend Pam, in addition to cookies and candies brought by other friends.

Dave is developing quite the reputation as a chef. He and I have always kicked around ideas of starting up a food business... I think he's getting closer to making it a reality!

In this picture: In blue, Grace, from Ruby's travel group. In the grey sweatshirt, Qi Xuan, who goes to school with Lin. In red, Claire, from Lin's travel group. And in black, our Lin.

Fifteen kids at our house! They all had a great time, and some new friendships were made among kids who previously didn't know each other. All but 3 of the kids in this picture are adopted from China.

In this picture, Lin, Claire and Michaela. All three are from Shanghai and knew each other before we knew them.

Lin really had a great time at the party. At one point I said to her "It's a little bit crazy, huh?" and she said "No, it's CUTE!" She was really excited to see Claire again -- they haven't seen each other since coming home from China in June. 

Lin was more animated than I've seen her be with other people. I even saw her talking to one or two of the adults, something she does rarely. It just seemed like she was so proud that this is her home. We all had a great time!

Xin Nian Kuai Le! Happy New Year!