What a difference a year makes

On Saturday, we all went to the annual Tet party put on by our local Families with Children from Vietnam group. Well, all of us except J. He was driving home from Indianapolis and joined us in time for the lion dancers. Before I show you pictures, you want to hear about his crazy three days, from Thursday to Saturday? Staying home with 9 children was the easy part. He had a conference in Colorado Springs that he was presenting at on Friday, but the complicating factor was that he had an in-person class for his doctoral program on Saturday. In Indianapolis. So this is how he worked it out. On Thursday, he drove to Indianapolis, put the car in long-term parking at the airport and caught a flight to Denver. In Denver he rented a car and drove down to Colorado Springs. On Friday he spent the day at the conference, after which he drove back to Denver and caught a late flight to Indianapolis and spent the night. That put him in the correct city for his classes. They ended mid-afternoon and he then drove back to Chicago, where he got to go straight to a Tet party. He was a little tired by the time Saturday ended.

And now some pictures.

Nutty K. and A.

G. 

L.

And some of the lion dancers. Now, if you remember, last year when we saw the lion dancers, the little girls screamed and screamed and screamed. They were too scary and too loud. Even afterwards, only one little girl even wanted to venture close to the costume. This year, they love them. In fact when it was over, G. looks at me and says, "That was awesome!" They even loved them so much that they were brave enough to feed the lion some money.

H. enjoyed it, but wasn't quite sure of the lions. Here she is examining one of the costumes. I should have taken a video because then you would be able to see her reach out, giggle, pull back, and repeat.

And then there's K. K. lives for lion dancers. He loves them so much that M. even made a costume for Christmas. After the performance, the dancers give the children a chance to try their hand at it. If you look at the picture below, you will see jeans and a green t-shirt. That's K., who spent every single minute under a costume. He also provided me with one of those questionable parenting moments, where you aren't sure whether to be proud of your child or vaguely concerned/embarrassed about his behavior. I was thrilled that K. was enjoying himself and was game to jump right in and try things out. On the other hand, every time I looked, more often than not he had managed to snag the prime spot right in front in the head. I was hoping that he didn't bully his way to the front too much. He may be little, but can be very single-minded when it comes to something he likes. And the boy likes lion dancers.

I have quite a few more pictures which I'll put up on the facebook page.