I hope it's going to be alrightI hope the music plays forever

And the New Year's celebration continues...The Japanese American National Museum celebrated their 'Oshogatsu' today. Pretty wise, taking a day off after new year's to rest. New Year's is all about hope. Wishing that everything will be alright in the upcoming year. The way you hedge your bets apparently is by eating weird foods and doing odd crafts. Whatever works, I suppose.

The museum provided entrance to the exhibits, free crafts, classes, cooking classes and more alllll for free. Which is why it was CHAOS.

Thank goodness we got there early. It filled up quickly and there wasn't much room to move. The kids went nuts with the crafts they had so many cool things for them to make, and you know I'm all about the crafts...

When I was a kid I remember O.G. had a daruma she got from the bank. You fill in one eye, you fill it with your loose change here and there and when you reach your goal you fill in the other eye. I don't remember the eye ever being filled in. We broke like dat, I guess. The museum had the kids make their own out of Easter eggs. Ingenious!!

The next craft area you could also pull a fortune stick which was a certain color - then you pull your fortune from the box of the corresponding color. Our fortunes seemed quite applicable to the way my life is going right now.

They also let people make their own soba - as in piece it all together. GREAT IDEA for people to try new foods. My kids ate two bowls!!

And of course, what's a day without Batman? They made their own spinning tops which of course I had to freeform a Bat-symbol using the world's jank-i-est markers. I think it turned out ok, good enough for the Baby anyway.

Another great FREE day provided by the museum. The kids always learn a lot and get to do some great art projects. I still don't believe in all this 'hopeful' new year stuff - but we'll see...

Soba recipe, here.
More Oshogatsu Day pics, here.