Yinghua Chinese New Year Pageant 2014

The Chinese New Year pageant put on by Yinghua becomes more and more the capstone to our holiday season each year. We get so happy thinking about it and so excited to see what the teachers and kids have come up with.  This year's performance clocked in at 2 hours 40 minutes!

Held at Bethel University again - and this space barely holds us now! Over 500 students were participating!

 

Here's our girl!

Behold, Cupcakes!

Wynn had some quality project-time with Grandma Barb today:

State Fair beginning to set up

Walking around the Fairgrounds tonight, we start to see preparation kicking into a faster gear:

Temporary structures beginning to sprout

She loves to run up on the stage at the Leinie Lodge - what will her routine be tonight?

 

And that will be that for our evening walks there

In the outdoor dining area behind O'Gara's

 

Relaxing in the garden behind the Natural Gas showroom (ah, also behind the WCCO-TV building)

Dancing Queen at the St. Paul Farmers' Market

Usually on Saturdays in the summer, the St. Paul Farmers' Market will have some kind of live music performance.  Today Wynn was really digging the music & decided to express her appreciation:

The crowd was really getting into her routine - clapping for her ... even the musicians gave her a shout-out...

 

Yes we did put more than a few dollars in the buskers' box...

Chinese New Year gala 2013 - Yinghua Academy

Chinese New Year is becoming such an important part of our family's life, and as Wynn gets bigger and more involved at her school, we learn about and adopt more Chinese traditions.

A tradition at Yinghua Academy is the annual New Year's gala, where each class performs - it's almost 3 hours long, with over 500 kids on stage at some point - in costume no less, and all the families in attendance.

Here are some photos from last night's performance!

We had two different Dragon dances during the show!

The entire 3rd-grade on stage in synchronized martial arts

Here's our girl!

This is Wynn's homeroom teacher - who's an AMAZING vocal talent.  She did a big solo number last year, too, and brought down the house!

Two lions dancing for us this year to close the show!