Another New Year

So, we’ve been having the Chinese New Year holiday this week.  It seems to be about the same as in Huainan, firecrackers constantly going off and such.  We tried to go down to the square to see if people were doing anything interesting but all we found were a few people lighting lanterns and releasing them.  That would have been awesome if there’d been a bunch of people doing it but it was just a few.

Lighting a lantern is a two-man job 

 

In other news, Smudgie is becoming the lap dog I always hoped he’d be.  As a puppy, he never wanted to stay in my lap unless I was letting him lick my hand.  As soon as he was done licking, he’d jump off and if I took my hand away, he’d jump off.  But as his second birthday draws nearer, he’s finding it easier and easier to fall asleep on me.

 

 Yes, I sit cross-legged in chairs, what of it?

 

 My current Facebook pic

 

 Dozing off in my hands

Pre - New Year's Family Dinner

Vivian invited us to have dinner at her grandparents' house along with several aunts, uncles, and cousins yesterday.  We were instructed to bring Smudgie, too, because everyone in her family loves him, especially her youngest cousins.  This was going to be our first time observing Smudgie interacting with small children without a leash on since our niece, Alison, met him before we left.  He was only 3 months old back then and she was not even one year yet.  He was uncontrollable and a little too rough for her liking.  BUT, by the time we return home Alison will be 3 and a lot bigger.  So my hope is the two of them can be great friends.  If he behaves like he does in this video, everything will be just fine:

I love how the little kids say "Smudgie!  Smudgie!"  The dinner was kind of chaotic.  I had to keep an eye on Smudgie to make sure he wasn't getting fed anything with bones in it.  I tried to tell them not to feed him anything at all, but they obviously ignored me so I eventually started feeding him to keep him close to me.  He went into sensory overload with so many people so he spent most of his time under the table.

Dinner was really good.  Our favorite things were the lamb ribs, battered and fried shrimp, and this type of nut called "xia guo" which translates to "summer nut" but I researched it and found out they were macadamia nuts.  The nuts were cooked in a broth with celery so they were nice and soft.  So good!  I must find out how to make that dish.  I was pretty much forced to drink alcohol because the other drinks they had were soy milk, strawberry soy milk, coconut milk, and sweet tea.  I had some yangmei jiu, which is popular here because yangmei (fruit) is grown in the Zhejiang province so they have a lot of them.  They freeze them and then make wine out of them and it's really strong.  I also had some regular red wine, and the kind they had was from Spain.  Huh.  Adam had too much baijiu, yangmei jiu, and red wine and he's still feeling a little hungover.  Here are some pictures from the night.

Our table (only half the people are pictured here)

Our table and us

Add Smudgie and one of the little kids

The grandpa and one of the uncles, chilling and observing the chaos

Vivian's aunt with Smudgie

  
Smudgie has been a worthless sack of potatoes all day today, he's so worn out from all the fun.