Chinese New Year RAH Style

You may think I'm a little behind on my post since Chinese New Year was January 26th, but if you did your homework, you would know that the new year is celebrated for the next 15 days after. So, I'm pretty much on track still.

At RAH we had a Chinese New Year activity, which I was in charge of probably because I'm Chinese or something. I gave a brief explanation about it, then I taught them how to say Gong Hay Fat Choy. I'm pretty sure my tones were off, but I don't think it really matters for them. Next I showed them lucky money and had them each come up by their animal groups and had them say Gong Hay Fat Choy before handing them their lucky money (a whoppin 50 cents and a fake 50 dollar bill). Not gonna lie, it was pretty adorable especially since most of them said it completely wrong or just mumbled something. They all still got their packets.

See, here I am giving them out.

Then I taught them how to use chopsticks and they practiced on marshmallows. So yes, some of them ended up stabbing the mallow instead but hey, whatever works right? Some of them took on the challenge to pick up pieces of candy and succeeded!

Next I gave them their animal year to color listed with the characteristics that are associated with the animal.

Here's all of them (55 people) holding up their finished product.

After, I taught them how to write Good Luck in Chinese. I taught them about stroke order and did a step by step demonstration while they followed along. Hopefully I did the strokes in the right order... I really just guessed what seemed logical, applying what I was taught in my very young childhood. Too bad my characters are incredibly boxy and not very flowy like they should be.

But they did a pretty good job following along. Ok, so not everyone's character looked like this persons, but for the most part, it went over well.

Then we did the dragon parade/lantern festival. We don't have a big dragon costume, but we did have this tiny accordian dragon you see pictured that led the parade. Everyone else carried a small lantern and paraded around the room following the dragon and to the tune of Chinese music I found at the library.

Look how happy they are!

I had them hang up their lanterns in our fake trees.

Looks pretty snazy huh?

This is what they ate for dinner.... I didn't plan the menu so I'm not sure what it all is, I didn't end up eating any of it, but it's Asian food... I did pass out those tangerines though because those are good luck!

Woot Woot!

Well, it finally happened. I am finally a permanent U.S. resident. It only took 12 and a half-ish years! But I'm very grateful that Heavenly Father has blessed me through the years with parents, school status, missionary status, and a job status, all of which has allowed me to legally stay in the U.S for this long before I am now on U.S resident status. Thanks to my family for supporting me and especially to those who participated in trips to the border so I could renew my visas and continue living here. Thanks to Jason for being born in the U.S (I guess we should thank mostly Heavenly Father and mom and dad for that one though...) so mom and dad could get their green cards and citizenship, which has allowed me to also receive the same blessings and privileges! I just wish mom were here to rejoice and celebrate with me and see all her hard work unfold to this! I'm sure she is and has though. Now just 5 more years till citizenship comes my way!

Also this weekend, I made this lovely chocolate cheesecake, recipe courtesty of Michelle, and it turned out amazing and delicious! The fresh raspberries were a nice touch!

PS. Happy Chinese New Year!!!!

For Mom

Dear Mom,

Happy Birthday!

I love you!

love, nancy baby

Michigan!

I spent the Christmas and New Year's holiday with Clarence, Annie, and family in Ann Arbor, MI. We had a splendid time, all of which passed rather quickly. Between the hospital visit and all the puking going on, we still managed to have a fun, noisy holiday filled with too much food, plenty of movies and not enough sleep.

In memory of mom. The sweater will now be retired while the hat made its debut and will continue a new tradition...

Here are the kids Christmas eve in their new pajamas. That extra baby in there is Laney Wilson, who she and her parents had Christmas dinner with us. That night, Isaac said the family prayer asking Heavenly Father to bless Santa to "come safely and bring as many presents as possible." He mentioned Santa 3 or 4 more times in the prayer and we did manage to get him to mention baby Jesus once too. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of Christmas. Mostly because Christmas ended in 10 minutes flat (the present opening part) after which I had to take a 2 hour nap because I was so tired. We successfully, then unsuccessfully talked to dad through the web cam, but due to an unfortunate power outage on his end, that got cut short too.

A couple of days after Christmas, Clarence and I took the boys to the children's museum where we pretty much had as much fun as the kids... possibly more.

When you ride this bike, the booth lights up next to it and you can see what your skeleton is doing while you're pedaling.

A couple of days after that, we took a trip up to Niagara Falls. I'd never been there so it was pretty cool. That was actually my first trip to Ontario as well.

Isaac was kinda being a stinker and never wanted to show his face for the camera. The falls were pretty cool, even though it's just a ginormous waterfall. But you have to experience it at least once in your life! We stayed overnight in Ontario and headed back the following afternoon. But not before stopping at the T&T Chinese store for hot pot food and duck, and then Costco to look for Dino-sours for Jason. Unfortunately they didn't have any...

...but you can find kids in large quantities. We got 4. hahaha.

On New Year's eve we played in the snow for a little bit. Clarence and mini Clarence also shoveled the driveway.

Clarence and Annie had friends over for New Years Eve, we played games and ate food and rang in the new year via the internet. I called dad to do the countdown with him and he said there were 15 seconds left till the ball dropped, while the internet was showing a minute left. Oh well, what does it even matter?

New Year's Day was my last full day there. Clarence hooked up his new speakers and Lilly and Isaac showed us their ballroom dancing skills while James rifled through the trash...

I already miss everyone! Thanks for a fantastic holiday!! But I guess we can't be in vacation mode forever.

Merry Christmas!! (almost)

Isn't this the coolest nativity you've ever seen? Well I think it is but I may be a little biased. Us Tangs made this natvity out of flour dough in 1986. I actually thought it was later than this but when I was in Maine, I found a paper my mom had written on when she donated the creche for the creche exhibit in Maine a few years back and she wrote made in 1986. Knowing how good of a journal keeper she was, I have no reason to doubt it's true.

I know that I made baby Jesus and the manger (with dad's help), mom made Mary, Andrew made the wise man with the red crown, Clarence made the one with the black crown and Jason made all the animals (I've always loved the "popcorn" sheep and the race horse). I can't remember what Michelle or dad made, but it's gotta be Joseph, the shepherd, or the third wise man . And someone must've made 2 or something. Later on (like in the last few years), Steve made the stable for the nativity and straw got added... for extra effect? I dunno, but I think it's pretty darn creative and has lasted so long!

I went to Andrew's house this morning to help make some potstickers and these little munchkins were there being extra cute. Above is the boy (Andersen) practicing his joystick coordination on the Wii, and down below is Michael, just 3.5 weeks old, finally showing me that he DOES have eyes!

Anyway, I'm off to Michigan on Tuesday for Christmas with Clarence, Annie and family so I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

A Maine-ly Lovely Thanksgiving

My thanksgiving break actually started off in Arizona. Alyssa, her sister Jenna, and Jenna's twin boys drove down to Arizona where I spent about 2.5 days there before flying out to Maine to spend a week with dad. We didn't do a whole lot while I was in AZ, but we did go to a foot reflexology place which was great. Unfortunately, we didn't take many pictures... yeah basically this one was taken on the drive to the airport when I left for Maine.

It was fun to be in Maine, it had been 3 years but really not much has changed. A couple of new buildings here and there but still good old Bangor Maine. In true Tang fashion, our holiday revolved a lot around food, food, food, and movies. I did go to the dentist after 3 years and my teeth felt amazing afterwards. And no cavities! Dad and I had Thanksgiving dinner at the Strong's then later that week, Annie came out from Michigan for a few days!

On Saturday the 29th, we had a memorial service for mom. It was nice to see many of the people in Maine that I haven't seen for a while. It was a lovely service, where Annie and I were privileged to speak along with 4 other people in the ward.

Instead of having flowers at the service, dad decided it would be more mom like to display some of her favorite books, which included the scriptures, church books, cooking books, nutrition books, childrens books, health books, and Chinese books. We also displayed her picture and the book that Michelle made.

Right after the service, there were refreshments and visiting and then we got right to work and helped with the upcoming annual creche exhibit. I'm pretty sure people thought we were crazy, or that it was typical of us to stay... "of course the Tangs' would be helping right after they had their memorial service!"

Here's dad and Tony Bernatche "working" so hard. Haha, ok fine, they just finished painting those black things.

And they actually did some manual labour (but only after they realized I was snapping photos! haha)

Annie ironed many many large pieces of fabric while music was playing out of her bum (no, Jason, not THAT kind of music... she had her iPhone playing some tunes in her back pocket!) And me, well I helped Sis. Rand organize all these papers, and then I helped Annie iron... sorta.

Sunday night we made sushi. YUM! Dad the master teaches Annie the art of sushi making. We had a few kinds of fillings... lobster, imitation crab, carrots, avocado, egg, bbq pork.

Yup, they turned out amazing and delicious. And very pretty with the asparagus and carrots dad cooked up. OOOOO. AHHHH.

Because Maine is so primitive and still a little behind on things, we have to use outside toilets.

Uh right, using modern toilets sitting on a driveway. Hahaha. Dad got a new toilet back just before Jason and Heather visited and the old toilet is still waiting to be hauled away. In the meantime, it makes for funny pictures.

Annie left on Monday afternoon but not before she and I saw the movie 'Twilight'. Yeah, we were 2 of 3 people in the theatre. Probably because it was the first showing on a Monday morning. I can't even believe we went and saw it. It was laughable, but I wasn't expecting much so at least I didn't come away totally disappointed.

By the way, this VitaMix machine is incredible. Dad and I had a breakfast drink from it each morning and a few nights, we also enjoyed a delicious smoothie.

I definitely need to get one... well um, if we get more economic stimulus money. Or when I make more than... well more than I make now.

Well, as all good things must come to an end, I did have to leave eventually, although I did tell dad multiple times that I could stay... He still sent me off though.

Up above the clouds I left, back to Utah...

Winnipeg: Exotic and Obscure

Winnipeg was highlighted in The Office this past week and in the Winnipeg newspaper that was talking about how the writers decided which city to choose for where the Dunder Mifflin team were going on their international business trip, they said that they chose Winnipeg because it was exotic and obscure...

They failed to mention how cold it can get...

Anyway, so I just got back from a real trip to Winnipeg where my family was able to gather together to honour and celebrate the life of my mom. It was a pleasant experience full of tears, laughter, reflection, love, hugs, and plenty of bum swatting. We have been very blessed to have my mom in our lives and in her own life she was able to touch the lives of many others everywhere she's been. Heavenly Father has been very kind to our family and has shown His love to our family through our many friends and other family members. Thank you to everyone who has expressed their thoughts, condolences and love, and who have offered many prayers in our behalf. It is greatly appreciated. Clarence posted mom's obituary on his blog so feel free to read about my amazing mother!

Dad, me and Mic

J, me, and Clarence

Andrew and James (who is Clarence's)

Extended family who was able to come

Our family and my grandma.

You may be wondering where Clarence and his family were during all these pictures. Well, before all those pictures were taken, we attempted to take their family picture, but it was apparent that naps were needed all around....

Well at least Clarence and Annie are smiling. Though James looks like he's being tortured, I promise they are great parents! Hahaha.

The family... minus a very pregnant Liew and Andersen (Andrew's family), and Heather who just gave birth the day after mom passed away, Ashlyn, and brand new baby Jaxon (Jason's family).

Thanks again to everyone for your support and love. We love you too!