Random Mondays: Happy Chinese (Lunar) New Year!!

Today's Random Monday Emoticon:

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Item in question fact:

Today is Chinese/Lunar New Year!!! This Asian holiday is HUGE and is well celebrated with abundance in food and games with all family members returning home. Every year, my family closes my aunt's restaurant a little early to utilize the space and the ginormous woks for cooking to put on a celebratory dinner fit for a king. Seriously. This year's menu consisted of 20 items of food (e.g. duck, quail, noodles, veggies, pork, beef, tofu, 3 types of rice, soup) and 3 desserts. The food was prepped and displayed in the buffet line.

Sorry the pictures are so blurry! iPhone didn't like the

horrible buffet lighting.

With over 50 people in attendance, laughter and joy from story telling could be heard miles away I'm sure. We were LOUD!

And to think I almost missed out on it this year because of the shop. An hour prior to closing, the hubby decided we were going to Oklahoma (3.5 hour drive) to enjoy the new year dinner with my family. He knew how BIG my family does it and was determined not to miss out on it. Meanwhile, I was set on not going. Not that I don't miss or love my family, but after a 12 hour shift (2am till 2pm) at the shop and a 3.5 hour drive immediately following (got to OK at 5pm) just to have dinner (dinner was at 8:30pm) then immediately drive back (left dinner at 10:45pm) another 3.5 hours to get back just in time to open up the shop again (got back to TX at 2:30am. Shop opens up at 3am), didn't sound appealing. Talk about extremely tiring. Plus, the hubby was driving and I was concerned if he had the energy to do it.

He even called my parents and jokingly tattled on me because I was being a bad daughter since I was refusing to go and that he might be arriving there by himself. He's too funny. My dad reasoned the same logic as I did. However, the hubby knew how much this annual dinner meant to my family and wasn't missing out. So the hubby took on the challenge and drove me to OK after a long work day so that I could spend New Year's with my family. Y'all, I have THE BEST hubby. Ever. Seriously. There's only 24 hours in a day, and we expended it all.

As if my hubby wasn't already awesomeness to the max. THEN, oh then... once we got back into town in the nick of time, the hubby let me sleep in till 7:30am while he proceeded to setup and prep the shop. Talk about love y'all. Le sigh... This has been by far the BEST Chinese New Year ever!

It's the year of the dragon!!

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From the hubby and I: 祝你新年快樂！恭喜發財！身體健康！萬事如意!!
(Wishing you a happy new year! To Happiness and Prosperity! To Health!  To accomplishing 10,000 things of your heart's desire!)