Happy New Year 2009

These photos were from google and the celebrations around China.  I'm not that good with the new Nikon yet!

When we were in China last year the decorations were just starting to go up around the hotels, inside restaurants and shops.  Giant red lanterns were placed outside the hotel we were staying in and you couldn't help but feel that this holiday was indeed significant for a country steeped in tradition.
I took this photo outside our hotel in Bejing last year.  These lanterns were huge!

What is so interesting to me is how connected I still feel to this country.  I enjoyed our trip, met amazing locals as well as adoptive families, and managed to squeeze in a few of the sites.  Our focus was on all the paperwork and appointments we had to finalize before departing, but I wanted to absorb as much as I could and take home significant items for Kira to have from her birth place.  So in a sense, celebrating the Chinese New Year, also marks the time we were in China to adopt our daughter, indeed one of the greatest celebrations of my life.

So this year I took a few photos of Kira in her new country and home, but also in her traditional Chinese outfits.  She didn't need any Red Envelopes as she already found all the change in my coat pockets!