Super Bowl Monday (Sunday)

Super Bowl Monday started off with Todd watching the beginning of the game before he went to work.  I took Cameron to school, picked Ileana up, and we went to a local restaurant called The Parrot.  It is owned by an American so he was showing the game on a big screened tv.  He had a breakfast buffet, free beer, bloody mary's, wings at halftime, and all the second hand smoke you can handle.  That was the only downfall.  There were about 15-20 men and 7 girls.  It was fun chatting with the girls while watching the game.  A new guy to Teda had a few too many drinks (as he told us) and became very chatty with us asking all kinds of questions.  He is from Minnesota so he was pretty excited to see a bunch of Americans.  We are hoping he doesn't think he is going to get into our circle. 

Megan, Ileana holding Piper, Me, Jessica, and Andrea.  Annie was taking the picture.

Feb. 6th also represents the last day of the Chinese New Year or Spring Festival.  15 days after Chinese New Year is Lantern Festival.  Lots and lots of fireworks.  6 vans/1 car (29 people) made a caravan to Tianjin to go to a couple Lantern festivities. All of our drivers had on their flashers so we felt like we were important people driving down the interstate.   Our first stop was to the Second Cultural Palace.  There was a "band" of older Chinese women playing instruments.  We felt like we were the entertainment though because everyone was stopping to stare at us and take pictures of us.  A lot of Americans and Mexicans stood out amongst the crowd.  The news crew was reporting right next to where the boys were so Manuel kept trying to get on film.  We listened a little bit longer and then decided to take a walk through the lanterns.  Again the news crew came along and Cameron, Manuel, and Alfredo were jumping around in the back.  That should be a great way for the Americans to be represented on the news.  It was pretty funny. 

Some of the vehicles that made the trip.

The Carrasco's are LOVING the cold weather.

The Harwood's are all bundled up.

Part of the gang.

More of the gang.

Some of the girls.

These boys can have fun anywhere.

The guys look cold except for Todd.

The lady in red is the leader.

Part of the "band".

The guy from the news.

The lanterns were very neat.

Great family night.

3 engineers (Todd, John, and Troy) trying to get the lantern up.
 They got it lit but it literally crashed and burned a minute later.

We got quite a crowd of Chinese watching us.

After a few pictures and a couple of the dads trying to set off lanterns, we decided to head to Ancient Culture Street.  Rachel heard last year there were thousands of people letting off lanterns so we wanted to check that out.  Once we got there we saw a huge police force and no one was allowed to let lanterns off.  Kind of a let down but it was still fun to walk around and see the lanterns and fireworks. The crazy thing about fireworks is they let them off wherever they want...next to buildings, cars, trees, etc.  They really don't think about safety.  On the drive home we were at a red light when a bunch of fireworks were shot off.  We heard a big "thump" on the van.  We were hit by something.  We all laughed but it really can be dangerous.   Good night with a lot of good friends.

The site at Ancient Culture Street.

The boys enjoying fireworks.  Cameron got hit in the face with something.

Walking down Ancient Culture Street.  Busy but pretty.

The lanterns were pretty.

These are the fireworks that hit our van.