P A R T Y ! (continued)

Josh and I went to the CJAA party this afternoon, we came prepared with our Chinese/Canadian flag pins. At the beginning we felt a little out of place, being the only couple there without a child, but the gang put us at ease. All the families were friendly and said that if we had any questions to feel free to ask.

Famous last words...

We talked to a few of the couples, and a lot of them used the same agency as us, so it was nice to get their perspective on things since they had already been through once or twice. They said that the process, when over there, is very smooth and organized well; that's a relief!

In total 17 families showed up and they were all dressed for the Autumn Moon Festival in their silk outfits. They looked SO precious! Even some of the adults got in on it as well.

There were a lot of activities for the children to get involved with. One of them, which I *loved*, was to build a sukkah out of some food products. The walls were made of graham crackers, the mortar was chocolate frosting and the top was made of pretzel sticks! How ingenious is that? The kids certainly loved it, and some actually made it home. The kids were covered in chocolate which didn't bode well for their silk outfits, but oh well. ;)

They also had an activity to put pre-cut circles (representing the moon) on a black background and then put star stickers around it. It was cute and the kids really got into it. A few of them coloured their moon, they didn't want to just have a white moon which they considered 'boring'.

The third activity was a group activity. All the kids put on different coloured t-shirts; yellow, green or brown and each one represented either the sun, the moon or the earth. The kids then had to 'orbit' around each other. Josh and I didn't get a good look at this activity, there were too many parents in the way taking pictures. I think this one was a bit beyond the children and they just started running all around the room, but they had fun and that's all that matters.

After the activities were done, we went over to a neighbour's house so the kids could see a sukkah. When they were in the sukkah, the neighbour took out a lulav and etrog, explained to the kids what they were and why they are important. One of the smaller children summed it up perfectly when she said "I want to go back in the sukkah" and when her mom asked why, she replied "that's where the good cookies are". (A girl after my own heart!)

An added bonus was that we finally met a couple that we're going to be travelling with. They've decided that they're going to take their daughter with them, she'll probably be close to four when we travel, but she doesn't quite understand what 'getting a little sister' really means. Hopefully she won't have to wait too long. :)