The Catalina Island "Dark of the Moon" Weekend was great fun for the three families who participated - 3 little girls, 2 big brothers, their happy parents and one doting aunt.
 
Activities included a birthday celebration, volleyball, card games, endless relaxed conversations sitting on benches at Isthmus Harbor, walking all over the isthmus, and yes, stargazing on a very clear night.

It was an absolutely perfect and relaxing weekend - one that will be repeated next year along with, we hope, FCC Moon Festival mountain camping.

UPDATE: Event info now posted here (1st banquet) and here (2nd banquet).

 Planning for Chinese New Year festivities is underway and we are hard at work to ensure that the ever-popular FCC-SoCal Chinese New Year tradition continues to be a favorite for all!

We are holding twin banquets on the first and last Saturdays in February – the 6th and the 27th.  Registration materials will be emailed out by the first of the year.  Chinese New Year falls on February 14th and the Golden Dragon Parade will be on February 20th.

On Saturday, November 14, 2009 at Beeman Park in Studio City the SoCal Friends - Chinese the Fun Way group met to do crafts and learn Chinese with WeiWei. Luckily, they didn’t get blown away with all the wind! The children had fun making turkey headresses and Thanksgiving cards. They also learned how to say and give thanks in Chinese. Pumpkin pie was among the assortment of treats!

The group meets monthly with a different theme. The next event will be Christmas in Chinatown on Saturday, December 12. Event details will be posted shortly. Other upcoming events will include Chinese New Year and Huntington Gardens.

Contact Arlene Balkin at arlene@levyaffiliated.com for more information. And look for information of upcoming events here on this website. Come join WeiWei and friends to learn Chinese the fun way.

The little artists who attended the FCC November Art Making Workshop in Irvine on November 1, created beautiful drawings of Chinese lanterns, mandalas, dragons and butterflies. Artist, Melanie Vogel, introduced them to Chinese brush painting and oil pastels.

The best part, though, was seeing the pride on all of their faces as they viewed their masterpeice. And of course the parents didn't mind chatting while the kids were having their class.

A fun time was had by all at Orange County’s 12th annual Moon Festival Banquet on October 4 held at the Ten Ten Seafood Restaurant in Artesia. To start off the event, families played a game in which every guest had a picture of their Chinese zodiac animal pinned to their back, and children ran about the large dining room trying to count up all the roosters, rats, dragons, etc. to win the grand prize, a giant stuffed panda. Perhaps it was predictable that pigs represented the largest group that turned out for the banquet, but there was a scattering of every type of animal, and kids had a great time trying to count them all up.

At its 18th Annual Image Awards on October 2, OCA-Greater Los Angeles bestowed its Community Service Award to out-going FCC president Jeri Okamoto Floyd.  The award honors Jeri’s leadership in guiding FCC–Los Angeles from a fledgling chapter to a thriving nonprofit charitable organization. Jeri helped integrate the FCC adoption community with the broader Asian Pacific American community by establishing cultural interactive programs such as the award-winning FCC-SoCal/China Care Bruins Buddy Program, which pairs FCC kids (6 to teens) with UCLA student mentors for monthly activities.