Saturday, April 19, 2014

The Holidays

I know it's practically Easter now, but it's never too late for a taste of the holidays right?

Moving at the end of the year means celebrating the holidays in less than traditional ways.  For Christmas, we were still staying in a temporary apartment without all of our normal stuff.  This meant....Christmas pictures at the mall! 

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Cora wasn't a huge fan and would sit on her own for a picture so I had to take pictures of her in her Christmas dress another day.  Our hotel had some great lighting for a photo shoot!
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Next up was New Year's Eve.  This is our first New Year's Eve as parents and we celebrated by....you guessed it - partying hard in our hotel room.  No, Cora did not stay up for the festivities, but we did remember to snap a few family pics to document the end of 2013.  Our hotel was close toe the Bund, which is where Shanghai had it's "Times Square" equivalent.  We were actually able to see some cool fireworks from our hotel windows. 

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Not far into the new year came one of the best parts of Chinese culture - Chinese New Year.  In China, the whole country goes on hiatus for the whole week.  Some people even take months off to travel back to their hometown and visit their family.  We decided to hightail it out of China and flew to Taiwan to spend time with my family and introduce Cora to some more family members.

It was a really special trip as Cora was able to meet her great-grandmother for the first time.  She is my grandmother's very first great grandchild.  Slik was holding her when we first arrived at my grandma's and he passed Cora over, not thinking about how heavy Cora was and how old my grandmother was.  As you know, Cora is a pretty solid girl.  Needless to say, it was a good thing I was standing close by to intercede because Cora nearly took her great-grandma down.  So, we compromised and had great-grandma sit down and hold Cora in her lap.  
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Cora had such a fun time in Taiwan and was spoiled with attention.  Everyone loved her and she loved everyone - she is such an outgoing and happy child.  After all, her nickname is 可乐, which means cute and happy.  After all, it's also the Chinese word for Coke (the drink, not the drug) and is actually quite fitting for Cora's bubbly personality.  
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At the Taipei Zoo
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Riding the Maokong Gondola at the zoo

And this last photo was the only one I could manage of Cora and the cute baby panda at the zoo.  There has been a panda craze sweeping the nation and it was probably debatable who would win the cutest baby contest.  Cora or the baby panda? Cora's got some stiff competition but you know who wins in my eyes :)
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