The Lee Family: Chinese Lantern Festival

Friday, January 4, 2013

Chinese Lantern Festival

Yesterday we drove into Dallas to go to the newly-opened Perot Museum which is apparently an amazing science museum for kids of "all ages." CK's office overlooks the museum so we planned to visit him after and maybe grab a quick bite to eat downtown together. However, we weren't the only ones who decided to visit the museum - the tickets were sold out until 7pm that night! So, the girls and I decided to visit CK in his office first and then walk down to the Dallas Aquarium which is also a short walk from his building. Once at CK's office, Sofia ran around and chatted with everyone before we loaded Olivia in the stroller and headed to the Aquarium. We hadn't visited the Aquarium since Sofia was probably Olivia's age. At that visit we had Sofia strapped into the stroller and were pushing her around until she got fussy and we took her out to let her "stretch her legs" at which point she disappeared into the crowd and the walkways were too narrow for us to keep up in the stroller. CK took off after her and stayed with her while she explored and I stayed back with the stroller behind a gaggle of people trying to catch up the entire time. We eventually met up at the end and compared our different experiences of the Aquarium!

This time, I kept Olivia in the stroller and although the walkways are still too narrow, Sofia stuck with us and we had a lot of fun exploring all the various jungle animals before getting to the "aquarium" section. It was a lot of fun and Sofia's favorite were the bats, which were really cool to look at in the dark. Olivia loved watching the otters swim around and they were right at her level.

After the visit, we returned to CK's office and were about to head home when CK's partner told us we had to visit the Chinese Lantern Festival. I actually had purchased a Groupon for it so we decided to eat dinner before going. We ate at a nearby Mexican restaurant that was very good. Unfortunately as I was leaving the parking lot in a hurry to meet with CK and Sofia, I accidentally ran over our Maclaren stroller! It broke off the front leg/wheel and was clearly ruined. I was so sad since we've had it since Sofia was just a baby and it's gone on just about every trip we've even been on! Of course, once I told Sofia she was just as sad.

After dinner we drove over to the Chinese Lantern Festival at Fair Park. It was a bitterly cold night, and we weren't completely planning to walk around at night, but we did have enough layers for the girls. Unfortunately we had to trade off carrying Olivia or keeping up with her as she explored since we no longer had a stroller. We walked throughout, looking at all the lanterns and it was definitely worth it! It was so beautiful, especially those that were set up next to the water - the reflections were incredible. We had fun, and nearly froze, as we enjoyed the Chinese Lanterns before we headed home. It was really worth the adventure and we now had two tired girls on our hands who were ready for bed.

The girls all settled into their respective car seats