Moon Festival 2006

I was anxious about Moon Festival this year. It was important to me that we observe this holiday, but I'm not very good about the holiday thing. I procrastinate and don't plan well. But as our first official observation of Moon Festival, this year was a great success. First of all we had family visiting: Tina's dad and sister were here with us, which is great because the most important part of Moon Festival is being with familiy. Secondly,we were able to buy mooncakes a the local asian market; pretty good ones too. This was great because we had waited too long to order them online. And Thirdly, the moon came out in all its big, full, extra bright glory for us to gaze at! (That's a picture of it at the top that I I took with my cheapo camera.)

Our celebration began on Thursday afternoon when our friend Mei-mei stopped by for a visit on her way to Vancouver. She brought Kai a present and a moon cake in its own fancy little tin. (That's Mei-mei up above on the right giving Kai a hug.) On Friday night (the actual day of Moon Festival) we had a family dinner and ate mooncake together. We got the lotus seed paste ones without egg yolk. They aren't too sweet, but are very rich. They kind of reminded me of peanut butter cookies. No big fans of mooncake in our family yet, but it's growing on me. I actually enjoy a little piece of fruitcake once in a while too, so I think I could become a mooncake lover. Kai loves them. He doesn't eat them, as he still refuses to eat anything requiring chewing, but he gets quite excited when we get them out. Mainly because we put candles on them and let him blow them out. But hey, he loves mooncake! (just not for eating)

Then on Saturday night Tina and I took Kai and Tina's dad and sister down to the Village Green in Fairhaven for the Mei Hua Chinese School's Moon Festival celebration. The weather was great and a lot of people turned out, both Chinese-American families, and adoptive families. The program was sort of like a talent show with students and faculty perfoming music and dance, as well as some story telling and fun Moon Festival facts. Kai's good friend Mimi and her family were there too (that's her up on the left getting a big hug from Kai). Kai's still a little young to start at the school, but we plan on having him there next year. We feel very lucky to have this program here locally for Kai.

So Moon Festival was a big hit at our house. Even though it doesn't fall on the same day every year, we feel this is Kai's REAL Family Day with us. It was so special getting to receive him in China last year on Moon Festival, we plan on always marking this holiday as his special day!

--Oh, and I started blogging again.
Yeah, I know I said it was time to stop, but how can you not blog Moon Festival?!