Chinese New Year at the Bradley/Bryant household

Once again we were invited to celebrate Chinese New Year with our friends Judi and Jama and their family.  It is something we look forward to every January. Every year seems to be a bigger celebration than the year before and the kids and the adults always have the best time.  Every one brings a dish to share (our contribution this year was red panang curry with chicken) and either some red envelopes with money, small toys, or candy to pass around to the kids after dinner for good luck in the coming year.  This year there were also some Chinese parachutes and other fun toys to play with that Casey and Haley brought back from their recent trip to China.

Jessie and Rian led the line of children around the room collecting their goodies in red bags from all the adults. Rian wore her hanbok from Korea, but Jessie decided to leave her Vietnamese ai doi home and wore a Chinese dress instead. 

Little Maya kept stealing all the bracelets with Chinese writing that I had to pass out to the kids.  But she was so cute, I had to let her get away with it :)

Some of the goodies this year included:  red envelopes with money, gold coins, bracelets, chocolate, candy, balloons, and other trinkets to symbollize good things to come in the year of the Dragon!

Jeanine, Jessie's preschool teacher whom we adore, and her husband, Kent.

Cyndi and Shane Ball

Diane, Jama, Shelley, Kirsten and sweet Marit.

It was a fun night for the kids, and I sure enjoyed having some conversations with really nice adults for a change!

Super Art! Reception

Hayden's bird painting (seen on the right in the background) was chosen by her art teacher, Ms. Seigel to be honored at the Poudre School District's Superintendent's Art Show.  Each piece was selected for display by art teachers throughout the district (one piece per school).  The works included drawings, paintings, fabric, photographs, etc.  Her picture will stay on display for one full year at the Johannson Support Services Center in Fort Collins. 

Receiving her award. You can faintly see her painting on the projection screen in the background.  What an honor to be chosen as the student to represent McGraw IB Elementary.

Her painting will also be on the school and district website, along with Channel 10 PSD news channel. 

San Diego Zoo

We love to go to California every January to seek some warmth and relaxation before heading back to Colorado to brave the rest of the cold winter months.  This year we were fortunate to again have grandma and grandpa come along. We started our trip with a visit to the San Diego Zoo.  It was the most beautiful day of weather we had the whole time- a sunny and very warm 75 degrees!  We were in heaven.  The girls were thrilled to have Uncle Jerry and Aunt Jody meet us at the zoo and spent the entire day with us. 

The girls are always so happy to see Aunt Jody!

Aunt Jody showed the girls how to get a foot massage.

Hayden hasn't been able to pass up a penny squishing maching ever since she was a little girl!

The panda bears are Jessie's favorite (and mine too).  We always spend a lot of time at their exhibit.  There weren't any babies this year, but we weren't disappointed. We got to watch the one bear eat his meal of bamboo and it was quite a show!

Rian wanted a caricature of her riding a zebra so grandma was kind enough to indulge her!

The finished product.

Rian's favorite- the zebras.

Jessie spent some time at the zoo thinking about making good choices.

The entrance to the Polar Bear Plunge exhibit.

One meal for a polar bear filled an entire large refridgerator, that's a lot of food!

A replica of one of the bears at the zoo.  It is the largest polar bear in captivity. The real polar bears were being elusive the day we were there, but the kids had fun playing around the exhibit area anyway.

I think the highlight of the day for Rian and Jessie was riding the SkyRide several times!

Rian and Uncle Jerry

Hayden's favorite of course, were the snake and reptile exhibits. Look what she found at the gift shop.

The end of a very fun and relaxing day.

We ended the day with a nice dinner at P.F. Chang's. 

The Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse

In order to take advantage of one of the last days of Christmas Break, my friend Kirsten and her adorable kiddos Kaia, Kjell, and Marit met us at the Dushanbe tea house in Boulder for lunch and tea.  The teahouse was given to Boulder from Dushambe, Tajikistan (a small country in Central Asia).  Over 40 artisans created the hand carved and hand painted ceiling, the plaster carved walls, and carved columns that offer a glimpse into the lavish Persian Empire.  After being constructed in Tajikistan, the teahouse was taken apart, crated, and shipped to Boulder where it was reassembled. Pretty impressive story!

The teahouse menu offered ethnic cuisine that literally spanned the globe and the selection of teas was amazing.  It was hard for everyone to choose both what they wanted to eat and drink.  I think you could have tea there every day for one year and never drink the same kind twice!

Even though I just left the restaurant a couple of hours ago, I cannot for the life of me remember the names of our dishes! This was a delicious chicken dish with rice, sauteed spinach and dried fruit. 

Rian was happy they had a Korean bulgogi dish.

Kaia with a Thai peanut noodle dish.

Rian and Marit had fun hanging out at their end of the table. Marit really took good care of Rian- she summoned the waiter over to our table to let him know he forgot to bring Rian her cranberry juice!

Standing outside in front of one of the teahouse's mosaics. It was such a fun afternoon full of lighthearted conversation.  Definitely one of the highlights of our school break.  The only downside was that both Kirsten and I got parking tickets within two minutes of arriving!  I didn't even have time to pay the meter down the street before a ticket appeared on my windshield, and poor Kirsten got a ticket for not having a front license plate in Boulder County!