Chinese New Year Festival

To celebrate Chinese New Year, we went to the Chinese New Year Festival at the SB Museum of Art. I've never been to a Chinese New Year Festival. Usually, our festivities involve a small family get together of eating dim sum or gai. Last year, we went to this temple in Sacramento, which was pretty intense. The festival this year was really cute. It had an extensive program including the dragon dance, lion dance, acrobats, folk dancing, martial arts, and traditional music played on a long neck zither.

The lion dancers were from UCSB and did an excellent job of hamming it up with the kids. The kids just adored them. The acrobats that we saw included a contortionist and a balancer. The balancer was my favorite. She balanced 3 eggs on a stick on her nose and 6 layers of mini glasses with fluid in them on her forehead while she hula hooped and spun rings on her arm. My hubster liked the contortionist. It was somewhat painful to watch her. That's how good she was! She's only 10 and has already trained with a Cirque de Soleil coach. I loved the festival. It was definitely a family affair. We're excited to have kids soon but not too soon.

*Sorry, no pictures. My camera wasn't charged. I forgot my cell phone. My hubster's camera didn't have the memory card in it. I'm sooo bummed. I'm definitely becoming too dependent on having my camera with me all the time. It was a beautiful festival. >_<