Happy New Year!

The Chinese New Year began on February 18, and lasts for two weeks. This year is the Year of the Boar (Pig), which is a very lucky year, as pigs symbolize prosperity. The Chinese celebrate with family reunions, feasting, and lots of fireworks. On February 18, we celebrated by eating at a Chinese buffet, and then attending a Chinese New Year celebration at UNF. It featured Chinese singers, dancers, acrobatists, and musicians. We all enjoyed it, especially the guy who could juggle huge clay pots.

Tonight, the Jacksonville Families with Children from China (FCC) group had a huge New Year's Celebration. We decided awhile back not to attend, mainly because the tickets were expensive, Zoe is difficult to dine with, and at this point in her life, would not appreciate it. As the time got closer, I started to second-guess our decision, so I was glad when Linda called yesterday to suggest that we meet for lunch. It seemed fitting that we had our own little family reunion today, and that Zoe and Molli were together.

We met Joe and Marie and the Derfuss family at the River Grille on the Tomoka River in Ormond Beach. It's almost exactly halfway between Orlando & Jacksonville, has outdoor seating on the river, and plenty of space for the kids to run around and play before and after the meal.

The kids love these huge rocks in front of the restaurant, they spent lots of time climbing on them, and afterward, we were able to get a picture of all 7:



Here are Zoe and Molli down by the water:



And Molli, looking stylish in her denim hat:



After lunch, we headed to a Starbucks near the beach, and Zoe and Molli saw the ocean for the first time. They loved walking barefoot in the sand and throwing handfuls of it at the rest of us. It was too cool for swimming, but they both got their feet wet. And then, of course, they both fell down in the water and got soaking wet. We left our camera in the car, but Don had his, and promised he'd send us pictures.

Grandma Varon kept Zoe the other day, and snapped some cute pictures:





In other news, we received the book Jerry published, with our blogs, e-mails, journals, and photos from our China trip. It is beautiful, and really professional looking. We gave Linda & Don their copies today. It's going to be a great keepsake for all of us.

Believe it or not, on March 18 it will be 6 months since Zoe joined our family, and it is time for our post placement report to go to the CCAA. This will be the last document to go to China. Tomorrow, we meet with the social worker who did our homestudy nearly 2 years ago! During all those months we waited for Zoe, this post-placement visit seemed like it woud never arrive, and now these past 5 months have flown by.