Happy Chinese New Year

Ok so the chinese New Year was yesterday but I had no time to blog then so Happy Chinese New Year a day late. In Butte yesterday there was a Chinese New Year parade to celebrate the event. It's an annual tradition and this was the first year I witnessed it. I was told it had a reputation as being the "shortest and loudest" parade. Well it was definitely loud. I'm shocked I still have my hearing honestly with all the fire works going off inches away from me. However, the shortest thing didn't happen. This year was the first year that they dragon dancers offered to do the dance of prosperity in front of your business if you gave the Mai Wah society a donation. So this year the parade was about 45 minutes long as the dragon dancers and the rest of the noisy parade made their way throughout uptown Butte dancing in front of businesses. It was interesting and I'm glad I saw it. The video should be on KXLF.com tomorrow if you are at all interested. Oh also it's the year of the tiger. And if you were born in 1986 you are a tiger. There's some more birth years that are tigers but I only remember 1986 and 1938 being read at the beginning of the parade. I looked it up and 1987 is the year of the Rabbit. I'm not sure how I feel about being a rabbit but I'm glad I'm not a rat or boar actually.
After the parade I went straight to Bozeman with my cousins to stay with more family out there for the night. That was good had a tasty dinner, talked, and watched the Olympics. Oh and by the way in case I didn't mention it before a guy from Butte, MT won a bronze medal in moguls. Everywhere you go now there is some kind of sign that says "Congrats Bryon Wilson on the Bronze" or something along those lines. Anyways back to Bozeman. I had a lovely 6:30 a.m. wake up call this morning by my one 2 year old cousin. He was excited to find where I was sleeping. Then kept starring at the horses out the window right behind my bed and telling me what they were doing. Then we jumped on the bed then the horses became scary monsters so we had to hide under the covers to protect ourselves and periodically look out to see if they were still there. It was really cute just early but that's ok. After breakfast we then went snow shoeing. Something I had never done before and I have to admit I had visions of tennis rackets being tied to my feet when thinking of the activity. Snow shoes actually don't look like that at all though. And it was fun and much easier to walk through feet of snow than with regular boots and sinking down. These shoes keep you more on the surface of really deep snow. It basically allows you to hike in snow, which is what we did. Even stopped to sit on a log and have a snack in the snow.
Anyways now I'm back in Butte and trying to catch up on a million chores I need to do. Still won't get it all done today but that's ok my apartment can be a mess another week longer. Tomorrow I'm going to interview the Chief Executive about how stimulus money has been, is being, or will be spent in Butte. Anything you want to know about it?? Text me.