I love it when the dancing girls bust out the fans and the shiny costumes for the parade.

I love the look of concentration on their faces as they remember their steps…

And even if they’re a little blurry and not in focus, they’re as pretty as ever.

Even when the parade is over and they are walking with their mom and sister to join in the festivities with their pals, they’ll still smile nicely for the camera.

These dancing girls are better than the Toddler and Tiara girls any time.

Here are all my photos from the Chinese New Year parade here! Now with more dragons.

Not only is the Year of the Dragon zodiac sign, but it’s the year of the Water Dragon. According to this website, this means the water will calm the dragon down, so that it’s not quite as tough as he usually is. Hooray! A friendly dragon? I’m in! I loved How To Train Your Dragon.

Despite the off-and-on rain, there were plenty of people out watching the parade. I think last year’s parade was more rainy than this one. There was actually some dry periods today.

Woohoo! See the two sisters wearing the matching jackets? They’re the Chinese version of my cousins, Andrea and Melissa. Aunt Sharon used to dress them up matchy-matchy when they were little. Adorable.

I was pleased to see the parade master today. HOWEVER, I don’t think this is the same guy as the one who has led the parade the last few times I’ve been! I wonder what happened?

I’m usually edgy until I get the photo of the parade leader. After that, I can relax and take photos of the people around me.

I loved this little granny photo. She was waiting patiently for the dragon.

You would think this guy would be happier about the news above his head. One day off from taxes? YESSSSS! Thank you, Water Dragon!

Everybody loves the Water Dragon.

Wait, was there a parade? Yes there was. I’ll post those photos later. And I went to the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens as well. I’ll post those ones later, too. I pushed my way through all sorts of places in Chinatown and enjoyed every minute of it. So far, I’m liking this Chinese Zodiac sign.

Today’s post will mostly revolve around fruit, specifically Chinese fruit. My new buddy, Annie, picked up some frozen durian fruit in her travels. I didn’t take a photo of it because it was just in a package. Besides, the important part of this fruit is not how it looks as much as how it smells. WHOA. Now, I had heard that this fruit actually smelled of POOP, so before the package was opened, I was all, “YES! Please let me try the durian!” because I wanted to say I ate the poop fruit and liked it. A few big fans of the durian assured me it tastes delicious, but smells like doodie. I was so ready to like it. Instead, I learned:

1) Everyone perceives durian differently. Some people love it immediately. Some people just don’t ever love it.
2) Sadly, I don’t like the poo fruit. I really wanted to. But the fruit was just really weird.
3) It didn’t even smell like poo to me. Instead, it smelled like gasoline. Other people in the office commented it smelled like dirty socks, but no turd smell.
4) Durian gives me onion breath.

Tomorrow Annie is bringing in more fruit for us to try – a fruit called, longan. It looks like a miniature version of lychees. I’ll show you and give you a review of that fruit tomorrow. Welcome to the fruit review! I’ll be here all week.

The whole reason why I brought up the poopoo fruit was because in my disappointment, Annie suggested I try some dragon fruit. It’s a fruit I’ve seen, but never eaten. So, off to Chinatown I went!

I have to say, Chinatown was kind of quiet tonight. I think it’s because a lot of the festivities are more with family than out in the open…kind of like going out to find Christmas festivities on Christmas Day. Everyone is home, with their families and friends, not out in the streets.

But there were some produce and meat stores still open…

And I was able to find some dragon fruit for tomorrow. Mike and I will have it for breakfast. I will report into you how it tastes. But for now,

here is how they look. Pink and green and a little scaly. Very dragon-y.

Today was one of the darkest, rainiest days I can ever remember experiencing in Vancouver. The sky was dark by 2:00 this afternoon and it felt like night time. Catherine and I headed over to the mall for some lunch and were happily visited by the Dragon! This whole week is Chinese New Year and there will be all sorts of surprises in the neighbourhood in celebration.

I’ve seen plenty of lion dancers, but these guys were great. Maybe I didn’t pay attention to all the moves in the past, but these dancers made the dragon really come to life with the way they moved the dragon’s body. They made the dragon’s eyes blink, wiggled his tail and bum, and stood right up straight. I think one dancer was standing on the other dancer’s knees to get that standing up straight and tall move. I loved how he looked like he was really bowing to the audience at the beginning of the dance. He bowed his shoulders, head and closed his eyes at the same time. I forgot there were people inside for a second.

The dragon only lasted a few minutes, and when he was almost finished, he opened his mouth and a scroll unrolled from his mouth.

That’s the fortune for the year. I’m not sure what that says…something about boats? A voyage? Prosperity? All those good things, I’m sure.

The drumming was also very good. I noticed how they make that firecracker sound with the big drums – they hit the side with the drumsticks. Awesome. I’ll be watching for that again this weekend at the parade in Chinatown.

Meanwhile, back at my desk…

…a Justin Bieber pinata. Who wouldn’t want to smash that to pieces? He’s a twerp with a girl’s haircut. Absolutely nothing like Donny Osmond or Shaun Cassidy – the hearthrobs of my youth. Oh. I just totally dated myself just then. But I did have a Shaun Cassidy t-shirt and haircut in the 3rd grade.

Thankfully it was not for me to keep, but it’s a decoration for Lianne’s daughter’s 12th birthday on the weekend. Lianne thought I’d like to see it.

SNORT!

…and I don’t really care about Valentines Day, but for some reason, I do like hearts. Oh wait. I love chocolate and that’s very Valentines Day-ish. Other than that…I’d rather stay home and watch movies, edit photos or blog. Last time I got my hair cut, the hairdresser asked me, “How do you wear your hair when you go out?”. I was stumped because I couldn’t remember the last time I went out anywhere where it mattered, unless Quilting Bee counts. Nah. They don’t care. OR DO THEY?

While I’m trying to stay on task with just one project and actually finish it, I spent a lot of the afternoon cutting hearts out of fabric that I had ironed on to fusible webbing stuff that makes it much, much easier to sew. I wish I had some of that for that potholder challenge in November.

Unfortunately, I think I broke my fancy cutting machine I bought with my Christmas money. I spent the other part of the afternoon trying to fix it. No luck. Rather than continue trying to fix it, I took about 15 minutes to cut out these hearts. Heh. And here I thought I’d save all this time using the machine.

I’ll try a few more things (like following the directions) before sending it back to the manufacturer.

I’m not sure what this will be…a festive runner for the table? A wall hanging? I’ll keep working on it and let you know.

I would write more, but I’m so tired from all the festivities and all the drinking of hot beverages from our fancy kitty cat mugs. Today we drank coffee AND tea from these glorious mugs we got for Christmas from Mike’s mom and dad in Nova Scotia. We’ve been switching the mugs back and forth – trade-sy so we each get fair time with each cup.

Christmas was lovely…I got a polaroid that makes tiny photos and all sorts of other treasures, including gift cards and a wooden skull sculpture and many, many chocolates.

I made a full-on turkey dinner with all the trimmings and now we’re watching movies.

It’s been an excellent day. I hope yours has been good, too!

I made some sugar cookies for Mike to take to the office after seeing this super easy recipe for glossy icing. Spoiler alert – it’s corn syrup! You mix corn syrup with icing sugar and a bit of milk, and voilà! Pretty, shiny icing. I love how it looks.

I didn’t get the consistency quite right – I made it a bit too runny, so the details kind of spread out and don’t look as crisp as they did when I first piped them out. That’s okay, though. With a little practice, I can use this to decorate all kinds of treats.

There’s not much flavour to this frosting – just vanilla – so this would be perfect to add some flavouring to it – peppermint or orange oil…delightful.

And now that I’ve got the Advent Calendar done for this year, I’m back to taking photos of my trusty assistant, Oscar.

He was super curious about the cookies. But don’t worry, Shaw employees, he didn’t get anywhere near them. Cross my heart.

We last saw the whole team making a quick get away from the violent potato gang…

Dave: Woohoo! Take that, you bully spuds!

Carol: Yah! See you later, taters!

Mike: Phew! that was close. Thank goodness for Oscar and Donner. I know we complain about their sharp nails, but I’ll never complain again.

Editor’s note: I am proud to let you know that No Potatoes Were Harmed® during the making of this Advent calendar.

Dave: Okay…our next stop will be very relaxing. There will only be pretty lights and happy people all around us. As it’s the longest night of the year, we’ll be heading over to the Solstice Festival at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden.

Carol and Mike: Wow! Ohhh! Ahhh!

Dave: So much bokeh! And look, a pretty shrine. People have written notes about peace on earth and harmony with the Potato Gangs.

Carol: Dreamy. I love this.

Dave: The Solstice has been celebrated since ancient times – many cultures put out lanterns and other lights around their homes on this darkest day of the year. This means we’ll start to have more daylight again soon. Hooray!

Mike: This event is really well attended. People love the Solstice Festival!

Carol: Oh man. I just saw the best sweater ever. I need to learn how to knit like THIS!

Dave: I love that, too. Do you think you could make me one?

Carol: Yup. No problem. Your sweater will be tiny. Good practice for me!

Mike: I love this sign above the gardens.

Dave: Yup. The potato gang memory is far behind us now.

Carol: We’re so close to Christmas I can almost taste it. I am chock-a-block full of Christmas spirit now.

Dave: Now, we’ll be heading out on another long trip, but in the meantime, be sure to go through the solstice festival photos here.

It’s baking time, that’s for sure. I’ve got a party to go tomorrow and I’m bringing 3 dozen cookies. I finally found a recipe to use up nearly a whole box of candy canes. I had the candy canes with red and green stripes, you can see the green flecks in the cookies. Hooray! They are pretty tasty, too. I like the brown sugar in this recipe. It’s lovely. This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies.

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening, at room temp – I just substituted 1/2 cup butter. I was all out of shortening.
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup crushed candy cane, measure after crushing – my favourite part. How do you measure a cup of candy canes BEFORE they’re crushed? Heheheh.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Beat together the butter, shortening, white sugar, and brown sugar.
3. Beat in the eggs, and vanilla extract.
4. Combine the baking soda, salt and flour in a small bowl. Gradually beat this mixture into the creamed mixture.
5. Beat well.
6. Stir in the crushed candy canes.
7. Drop onto lightly greased cookie sheets by tsps; keeping 2″ apart. 8 Bake at 350 for 11-13 minutes or until lightly golden brown around edges.

Thanks food.com

I had a lovely weekend that included snowshoeing, baking, and sleeping. Whoa. I guess I needed that. I slept a lot – getting ready for the weeks ahead, including the Shaw Christmas party next Saturday.

My sister sent me this cartoon today. I’m pretty sure this is what we can expect from Donner – our littlest kitty. Not good. That means no glass ornaments this year. And probably next year.

Thank goodness I made that little Babushka ornament…she’ll be fine on the tree. She’s a very safe ornament.

Guess what tomorrow is? December 1st. You know what that means…

Advent calendar time! I’ve already started working on it. Tomorrow AM marks the beginning of this year’s adventure.

Let the advent begin!