Today we left for a ski vacation at Steamboat in Colorado. My Aunt Alice puts together a ski trip every year out West. We haven’t gone in a couple of years because I was pregnant and then my Baby was too little to fly to a cold place, but now that my Princess has learned how to ski, we are excited to start attending again. This year there is a big group going, sixteen adults and two little ones. Besides my Aunt and Uncle and my parents, another Aunt and Uncle, my sister and brother, and a bunch of my cousins are going. It’s going to be a really fun time.
Even though we woke the girls up at 5am, they were so excited and full of energy at the airport.
I’m not going to lie, the first leg of the trip was tough. Isabella was awake the whole three hour ride and needed to be entertained. She did some drawing and played with her stickers, played with the iPhone, but mostly ate. She ate almost all of my snacks I had packed for both flights of the trip!
Thankfully, she slept the whole second flight. She fell asleep right after eating my last snack.
We flew into Hayden, Colorado, a small airport near Steamboat. The great thing about flying into a ski town is that almost everyone on the plane is going to do the same thing…ski or snowboard! Everyone is excited so the plane ride is filled with conversations of where people are staying, how many times people have been to Steamboat, what are the best trails, great ski stories, where to go apres ski. I love listening.
We finally made it to Colorado! The girls were so excited. Coming from New York where there are three major airports, I really appreciate small airports. It took us three minutes to walk off the plane and get to baggage claim. We had our baggage in the next ten minutes and were ready to leave the airport.
This is the view from the condo. I can’t wait to see someone hit that jump.
We got to Colorado around 1pm. My Princess wanted to ski so badly so my Dad and Uncle took her out for a little while. She has only experienced East Coast snow and trails so the fresh powder and long trails in the West are new for her. She had a blast and now wants to get her skis waxed so she can go faster! After skiing, my Grouchy Husband took the girls out to play in the snow. He used a sled to make a path from the condo to the trail so we could ski right out and avoid the lift. My Princess had a good time sledding with him to make the path. It got pretty fast after a few times and she loved it.
My Baby was busy playing in the snow and making mini snowballs.
She saw how much fun her sister was having so she wanted to sled down also. She took a turn with my Grouchy Husband and had a big smile on her face. They didn’t want to take turns sledding so my Grouchy Husband tried to take them down together but they didn’t like being squished. I was relieved, the path was already pretty fast, the weight of three of them would have made it even faster.
My Baby loves to eat. She was just walking around the condo pouting her big lips so people would give her food. One time she had her eye on my Uncle Billy’s beer! See those dumplings on the table. They are a part of all my family gatherings. These were my Mom’s pork and chicken recipe. Delicious!
My Uncle Davy just got a new computer and he did not know how to turn it on so my sister and Aunt Martha are trying to help him. Who doesn’t know how to turn on a computer?! Haha. My Uncle Davy is one of my Dad’s brothers, most of the brothers including my Dad are engineers, he is an accountant, maybe that’s where his short comings come from…haha.
My Dad loves playing with the girls, not usually at the same time, but here he is keeping them both busy with Elmo videos and a game of Uno.
My Aunt Alice and Mom go to the grocery store everyday to make sure the refrigerator looks like this everytime you open it.
I just got here and I already ate too much food. Beef stew for lunch, dumplings for snack, then peas and chicken with a fried egg for dinner, and then more dumplings for dinner. I heard the word dessert and just had to upstairs and hide.
A Colorado Dumpling Mama for the next week,
Chrissy
I made two changes to the recipe to fit my family’s eating style. I switched the pork belly to pork butt because it’s a little bit leaner, and the white sugar to agave sweetener because it’s less processed.
I minced the garlic and put together the Chinese rice wine, soy sauce, agave sweetener, hoisin sauce, five-spice powder to create the marinade.
I have to double the recipe because my husband and little ones love this so much and it is great to make Barbecued Pork fried rice the next day. I bought a 2 pound pork butt and cut it in half, creating two long pieces.
After a few hours marinating, I put the pork in the pan and covered it with honey.
The pork comes out of the oven and is the perfect combination of crispy and juicy. The air is filled with this amazing smell of barbecue sweetness.
I cooled the pork and then cut it into slices. I poured some of the marinade from the pan over the pork. This picture makes my mouth water.
Today was the last day of ski school. Boy did these six weeks fly by. Words cannot express how happy I am with the experience. My Princess can now take the chair lift and ski down the mountain by herself. As a mom, it is such an amazing feeling to watch your babies learn something new and be so proud of themselves. My Princess loves to ski and I know it has a lot to do with allowing her to pick whatever she wants at the snack bar after her lesson and download any app she wants on my phone and play it on the way home. It doesn’t matter how painful it has been to buy a bag of potato chips after each lesson, she loves to ski so it was all worth it.
First run of the day. Taking the chair lift like a pro.
Coming down the mountain all by herself. No 
Looking tired after ski school. Her instructor Katherine carrying her skis out for her.
Relaxing and enjoying the beautiful day before changing out of her ski boots.
Getting a big hug from her little sister for doing such a great job at ski school.
Start with 1 pound of ground dark meat chicken. I ground my own chicken so I can use organic chicken meat.
Chop 1 cup of some scallions, about 3 to 4 scallions.
Rehydrate 1 cup of dried shiitake mushrooms and then chop. You can find these at any asian market.
Peel 3 to 4 fresh water chestnuts and then chop. My mom says the water chestnuts with the dirt on the outside are fresher then the clean ones. You will find more rotten chestnuts in the cleaned batch.
Chop up the napa cabbage.
Mix the chicken meat, scallions, mushrooms, water chestnuts, napa cabbage, corn starch, salt, sesame oil in a bowl.
Mix thoroughly. Don’t be afraid to use your hands.
Get out the dumpling skins. Twin Marquis is my favorite brand.
For the filling, scoop a heaping teaspoon for each dumpling.
(1) Place the filling in the middle of the dumpling skin, dab your fingers in the egg wash and coat the edge of the skin, then fold in half but do not press shut (2) You will make three pleats at the edge of the side closest to you. To make a pleat, pinch the skin in between your thumbs and then press firmly to stick to the back side of the skin. (3) Repeat two more times (4) Evenly space the pleats and place firmly on a flat surface to make sure the dumpling “sits” on its own. Pinch the edge firmly to make sure the dumpling is completely sealed.
If you are making more then you can eat at the moment, place a sheet of plastic wrap or parchment paper over a tray and as you wrap the dumplings, line them up one after another. Make sure the dumplings do not touch and are all “sitting” by themselves.
For the dumplings you want to eat, coat the bottom of a non-stick pan with oil. Fill the bottom of the pan with dumplings. Line them up snug. Cover the dumplings half way with water, put a cover on the pan, and cook on medium heat.
After fifteen minutes check the dumplings to make sure most of the water has disappeared. Wait another five to ten minutes and the dumplings should be done. Check to make sure the bottoms are brown and crispy. Cook until they are.
To get the dumplings out of the pan you can:
We just finished a weekend of celebrating Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is my third favorite holiday, after my birthday and Christmas. I love seeing family, eating, and all of the exchanges of good fortune for the coming year. Here are some of my favorite moments.
When we celebrate with my family, we go out to dinner at my (paternal) Grandfather’s favorite restaurant in Chinatown in memory of him. There are always two tables reserved, one for the elders, and one for the elder’s children. My Grouchy husband and I still sit at the children table even though we have children ourselves. The elders threaten to move our seats to their table, oh I hope that never happens.
Dinner consists of all our favorites and good luck dishes like long life noodles, whole chicken and lobster. There is always too much food. This is a picture of the table at the end of the meal when we were all full. It looks like we didn’t even eat.
My Baby worked hard to eat her long life noodles. She’s just 17-months old, she’s got a lot of life to live.
One noodle got stuck on her nose and she couldn’t figure out how to get it off. It was so cute!
My dad and his brothers. This is the one holiday they are all together so I was happy to get a picture.
My dad and uncles always celebrate the New Year with a bottle of whiskey.
This year our celebration was the same day as my brother’s birthday. He’s over six feet tall. This picture of him blowing out candles on top of a Carvel cake (his favorite) makes me laugh.
My girls were dressed head to toe in good luck pink. My Princess wanted them both to wear their tutus.
We celebrate Chinese New Year with my Grouchy Husband’s family at his aunt’s apartment in the city. At most family gatherings the girls are usually the only little ones which is ok because they get to play with their adult uncles and aunties. But at this gathering, Jeff’s cousin comes with his two kids so the girls have a blast playing with other kids.
Desserts are a big part of Chinese New Year because their sweetness symbolize a rich, sweet life. There were so many delicious desserts at my Grouchy Husband’s family gathering. My Baby is crying in the back because she wants one of the cupcakes badly!
My sister-in-law brought these cupcakes from 
Happy Lunar New Year! According to the lunar calendar, this is the Year of the Snake. This is an extra special year for me because I was born the Year of the Snake (1977). People born the year of the Snake are thought to be wise, intelligent, and clever. The 
The girls went outside to enjoy 
My Baby used the snow in the air to make her snowball. Because she was so bundled up, she couldn’t bend down to the snow on the floor.
My sister was in town for 
The first snowball was done. My Baby was so excited it was so big.
The making of a fine snowman.
Finished! My Princess did such a good job. She found the sticks for the arms and pushed in the rocks for the eyes and buttons. The best (and only) snowman on the block.
This week at ski school we had a special visitor…Dada! My Grouchy Husband works a lot so anytime he can be with the girls they are just besides themselves thrilled. And I’m thrilled to have an extra set of helping hands. Ski school starts with helping my Princess get her gear on.
My Baby waits patiently for her sister…
…and waits.
I try to grab a picture of the girls smiling.
My Princess giving my Baby some pointers on skiing. After two lessons she is experienced enough to do this…haha!
My Princess was so happy to have her dada with her at ski school. He stood outside for most of the lesson watching her go up and down the magic carpet in the cold. The things only dadas will do…
Today was my Princess’ first day of ski school and she was fantastic. She started out the day a little nervous but she had her “edgie wedgie” (little green elastic clipped to the tip of her skis to keep them together) to give her a little bit of confidence.
The class is tiny with only one other little boy and Catherine the ski instructor. Catherine has great energy and super attentive to her two students. I’m really happy she will be their teacher for the next six weeks.
She caught an edge and was going to fall…
but with grace and skill never touched the ground and stood back up…I like to think she gets that from me. My Grouchy Husband would of course disagree.
All smiles at the end of her lesson. I love smiles.
My Baby was the biggest cheerleader. Literally, the “biggest” in her snow pants and double jackets. The pants were so puffy her jacket wouldn’t go past the middle of her chest. She wanted to ski so badly. I can’t wait for the day the girls are both out on the mountain.