Time seems to have been put on fast forward. I can't believe it's the end of March. In the past 3 months Chris had a birthday, Gabe celebrated a belated birthday with a "mad scientist" party, China celebrated Chinese New Year, we went on a trip to Australia and New Zealand, Sara got potty trained, we celebrated our 1 year in China March 17th and Emily had her ninth birthday.

It's been a packed 3 months.

We didn't actually spend Chinese New Year in China but all the festivities leading up to it were fun. All the commotion in the weeks prior are a lot like the weeks prior to Christmas in the US. All the stores were bursting at the seams with people getting all their last minute food and celebration items. There was a general feeling of excitement in the air where ever you went. The official celebration color of China is red so everything was decked out in red decorations. One tradition among the more religious people is to put three strips of wide red paper over their doorways. People also put the Character "Fu" on their doors meaning blessings.

If you actually need to go anywhere and buy stuff it is a really frustrating time of year because of all the crowds but if not, it's a really fun and exciting time of year. It is now the year of the Tiger so there are tiger symbols everywhere. Because Shanghai is a very migrant place with people coming here from the rural areas to work, it gets really empty while everyone goes home for the actual Chinese New year holiday. The week before Chinese New Year the freeways out of the city were jam packed. Being with family is a very important tradition. The actual night of Chinese New Year families gather for a big meal of the traditional dumplings called Jiao Zi and then set off an insane amount of fireworks. Then they do the same thing 5 days later as part of another celebration within the existing celebration. It gets a bit wild with lots of booze and millions of people setting off very large fireworks at the same time. Some friends of ours that were were here and live in a big high rise said there were fireworks exploding all night right next to their window 32 floors up. Oooooooo lots of fun!

Another and probably the most important tradition according to children, is the Hong Bao. Instead of presents the children get a red envelope full of money. Over all, this is the most meaningful and exciting time of year for the Chinese people and it was fun to see at least the weeks leading up to it.

Emily and Gabe got to join in all the festivities at school by doing some performances. All the Chinese language classes got to do their own dance at a big assembly in the auditorium. It was a blast to see all the kids doing Chinese dancing or in some cases kung fu. There were performances done by professional dancers too. Emily and Gabe got to make all sorts of New Year crafts and do New Year parties in their classrooms. Gabe's class got to make home made Jiao Zi and eat them in his class room. It was a messy, but great time.

A week before Chinese New Year we did a friends birthday party for Gabe. We figured a bunch of science experiments would keep 11 boys occupied for a couple of hours. We had them all wear ID badges and gave them Lab coats (men's white dress shirts I bought for $3) The cake we made into a volcano with smoke from dry ice coming out. Gabe had been sad about his best friend moving in December and so this party helped lift his spirits a great deal. It was a wild, messy, party but I think we managed to pull it off, despite the house being a disaster afterword.