CNY Vacation 2013

We kicked off vacation with a special Chinese New Year's Eve dinner with our friend Audrey's family.  It was so kind of them to include us in their celebration!  We shared a delicious traditional 12-course meal.  

Communal dishes are placed on a rotating tabletop, and everyone uses their own chopsticks to help themselves.  And, of course, no Taiwanese celebration would be complete without some karaoke!  

The rest of our week was spent mostly doing this:

Though during nap time, we also did quite a bit of this:

Yes, those are Dominion cards.  Yes, I actually enjoy playing this game now (perhaps because I've started beating my husband?  Ha.)  And yes, we have reached a new level of nerd-dom in the Spencer household.  

Of course, we also did some experimenting in the kitchen.  This is our attempt at traditional Chinese New Year Red Bean Cake (a steamed dessert made of red beans, sugar, and glutinous rice flour).  Despite how it looks, it tasted pretty good.  As I'm typing this, it occurs to me how weird it is that we consider red beans a dessert food now.  Anyway...

One Tuesday, we headed up to the hot springs in XinBeitou.  We enjoyed a nice soak with friends Audrey and Gus, her parents, and their pastor + family.

The pastor and his wife have five sons (quite unusual for a Taiwanese family!)  They have been planting churches in southern Taiwan for many years and it was great to meet them.

Keira provided us with never-ending entertainment (especially as this was the day she started laughing!)  The pastor's wife graciously offered to hold her while we enjoyed a soak.

On Wednesday, some dear friends offered to babysit, so Kalan and I went on a movie date to see Les Miserables.  We highly recommend it!

Throughout the week we also enjoyed several meals with friends, a few play-dates at the park...

...and many walks around the neighborhood.  This man we saw was doing Chinese New Year calligraphy.

Another Taiwanese tradition we experienced this year was hong bao.  During Chinese New Year, children are given red envelopes with "lucky" amounts of money inside.

We were surprised when Keira received several hong bao.  (Guess it's time for a savings account!)  Her first hong bao was from Chang-uh Ayi ("Auntie" Chang, who sells umbrellas in the store downstairs).

Wow, what an awesome week.  We're thankful for this restful "stay-cation"--especially for all the time we spent as a family and the memories made with friends.