Lantern Festival, 2011

I am a little late in posting this, but we did celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon festival a couple weeks back. For those who do not know, the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is the second most important festival in China, after the Spring Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival is similar in significance to our Thanksgiving Day, and is one of the few "reunion" holidays where families gather together with loved ones, show their love for their loved-ones, enjoy the beauty of the full moon, and enjoy some delicious moon cakes (cookies in our home). This year, the Ladybug and I made another batch of our yummy moon cookies which was a great way for the two of us to spend some great, quality time together. the Ladybug is becoming such a great chef (baker in this case), and made sure to be a part of the entire process.

Following our afternoon of baking, we went to a special place in the hills where many hot air balloons ("Hot Balloons" as they are called by the Butterfly!) were lighting up in the beautiful, clear night sky. This was such a special way to begin our celebration of the Lantern Festival... watching and enjoying some VERY LARGE, hot air lanterns! We stayed there in the field for over an hour enjoying the the visual symphony as the balloons synchronized their lights with each other. Simply beautiful!

The following evening, the girls dressed up in their favorite Chinese outfits, we all grabbed our homemade lanterns (something we created last year for the festival), and took to the streets of our neighborhood. We visited some of our good friends in the area, offering them some of the delicious cookies the Bug and I made the day before, told them we were thankful for their special friendship, and wished them a wonderful Autumn. It was so special for us to share this Chinese holiday with our friends, who loved our visit and were inspired by our enthusiasm for continuing this tradition.

Following our walk around the neighborhood, we settled in back home and reminisced about all the reasons we are thankful to be a family. It was a very special evening for all of us. One that we all look forward to celebrating again next year.

~~Aloha!