February & Chinese New Year in China

February started with the girls having Chinese, or Lunar, New Year festivities at school. Eve performed a song with her grade as well as a dragon dance at an assembly for parents. Then there were traditional Chinese festivities we participated in. I love going to these events at the school except for the fact that they don't heat the auditorium so in winter I have been freezing! It's common to not heat public places here (restaurants, malls, etc) so I guess everyone else just gets used to it but I haven't! In this first picture, Eve's teacher Mr. Cho is right in front of her. He's the cutest Korean guy--I love that he's barely taller than the third graders! 

The  next day I went back for an assembly put on by the Chinese department of the secondary school. Mini was one of the emcees, announcing the acts in Chinese then English. She and Emmy are in the same Chinese class (6 people) and the class put on a play. I didn't understand it as it was in Chinese but I sure enjoyed watching! 

Liv was in a drum performance with her Chinese class. 

The kids had a full two weeks off for Chinese New Year. During the first week, a massive storm hit Wuhan and the city was slammed with snow and ice (I'm told this storm is very rare for Wuhan and we got to experience two of them in February...). Lots of branches came down and the roads and walkways stayed icy. They are not equipped for snow at all. We laughed one morning when the snow removal crew came through--a group of middle aged women with shovels. The kids were good sports--they went out and played a bunch even though we don't have our snow stuff. It'll be great when our stuff arrives--or maybe I should start saying IF it arrives ;)

When the basketball court cleared up we went there for some exercise, as well as some of the neighbor kids. This Chinese lady decided to spectate in the middle of the fun! 

We went to Hong Kong for the weekend, Friday through Monday. Highlights were Adam and me doing a temple session, in person church, Lamma Island, and watching fireworks with millions (literally) of other people over Victoria Harbor. 

Mini spotted this wild pig on Lamma Island

This butterfly landed on Emmy's leg. So cute. 

After hiking from our hotel to Victoria Peak, I was proud of my having hiked the equivalent of 102 flights of stairs!

I enjoyed seeing all the New Year decorations, both in Hong Kong and Wuhan. 

And I've started trying to capture random China moments. This place is so different, fascinating, and beautiful! 

This guy is friendly to us and yells "Good mohning!" as we're walking to the bus stop. He also always makes such a big deal of Emmy wearing shorts, exclaiming "ay-yah!". In fact, everyone in China is super impressed but also exceedingly concerned when they see us not bundled up, i.e. me running in running shorts (they go below my knee--it's not like I'm in booty shorts) and T-shirt when it's in the 50s. I've gotten many admiring thumbs up while running. 

These girls asked for a picture with our girls. 

For our Valentine's Day scavenger hunt, the prize was everyone getting a figure of their Chinese zodiac animal. I'm a rooster and usually don't resonate much with the rooster but this one (in the middle) is so so cute--I love it! 

And people deck their dogs out in the most ridiculous outfits here. It's hilarious. 

Rainy day dog outfit

Finally, this was a text chain Eve sent, thinking she was just texting me. She was actually texting Adam, me and our friends Patrick and Xiaoyu Belnap. This pretty much sums up how well school from home went when we had online school for 2 days because of the snow! I was ready for in person school after 2 weeks of break then school from home 😖 Anway...thankfully Belnaps thought it was hilarious!

Bye for now and happy year of the dragon!