Yesterday we drove down to San Jose. We had to be there at 7 p.m. It takes about an hour and a half to get there. Isabelle slept the entire way. That’s quite a long car ride but it was for a very good reason. We were there to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday. She turned eighty! When we arrived a few minutes past seven my uncle said we were very late. Turns out my mom had told everyone to arrive at 6:00 or 6:30. She told my sister to arrive by 7:30. And when we got there my mom hadn’t even arrived yet, she was the last to get there. Crazy woman!

We had a private room at the restaurant and there was karaoke, of course. I did NOT sing. I had my hands full with Isabelle or food. Yummm…foooood….

Sometime during the very long dinner we started to hear drumming. They had some other event down the hall and there was a Chinese lion dance. We brought Isabelle over to watch for a bit. When we brought her back to our room she would take our hands and pull us back down the hall. (have I mentioned she does that now? Takes our hands and drags us off to whatever she wants to show us. It’s so sweet.) The drumming was really loud but she wanted to be super close to it. I don’t know why. She’s usually afraid of loud noises.

After they were done they had the lion costumes sitting on the table. I brought Isabelle over to look at it. One of the dancers saw Isabelle’s interest and made the mouth move and the eyes blink and encouraged her to touch it. The rest of the evening she was determined to be in that room, even long after the dancers were gone. She kept going over to the table where the costumes were and pointing and babbling.

She finally stopped dragging us down the hall and took quite an interest in the other little girl there. She stood there staring at her and babbling. I was surprised she didn’t give her a loud kiss (also something new she does now. Instead of quiet kisses she now gives kisses with a big mwaaah noise).

We didn’t leave until about 10:30 p.m., another long car ride. Isabelle only slept for half of it but was nice and calm for the remainder of the trip. We arrived home a little after midnight.

It was a wonderful evening. Only a couple of things I wish I could have changed. I only brought my fixed focal lens so couldn’t get a group photo of everyone there. The one I have is only about one table full of people. The other thing, I would have loved a picture of Isabelle pulling Alan down the hall. Oh well.

And today Isabelle’s been playing with all the red envelopes she got.