Dragon Lights

We continued with the Lunar New Year theme when we got home from Disneyland and attended the Chinese Lantern Festival at the Utah State Fairgrounds. This was our first year attending this event, and we were blown away by how gorgeous and imaginative everything was.

A tradition that started over 2,000 years ago, the lantern festivals are China’s most important celebrations, they mark the return of spring, with the lighting of the lanterns being symbolic of illuminating the future and the reunion of family.

Each of these Chinese lantern is custom-built by Chinese artisans from Zigong, Sichuan, China’s cultural capital for the ancient art of lantern-making. Each lantern typically takes four weeks and a team of seven to complete.The lanterns appear to be three-dimensional stained glass, and are handmade from hundreds of pieces of silky cloth. Some are over 30 feet high and others are up to 300 feet long.

Around every corner was another magical, colorful scene. This under water tunnel was definitely a crowd favorite.

This larger than life frog slowly transitions through different color combinations, it was mesmerizing to watch

This was such a fun and unique event! I think it needs to be added to our list of annual events!

Fantasmic

One of the nights we were in Disney, we went to Fantasmic, I hadn't seen this show in years and didn't remember much of it, so I was excited to see it! We did a dinning package to ensure we got a good viewing spot. These dinning packages are such a great idea, you get a delicious meal as well as amazing seats, and you don't have to stress as much about getting a good spot in line and wasting hours of your precious time in the park reserving a spot.

We dined at River Belle Terrace which isn't a place I go super often, so it was fun to eat there. We had a table outside, right next to the sidewalk. We saw the shadow man pass by, he was concocting an evil plan with a guest, he was trying to find Tiana and put a spell on her, such a fun character sighting.

We got a special dessert that is only for the Fantasmic dinning package guests. So amazing!

Then we headed to our viewing area. The dinning packages assign you a section, not a specific seat, so there is still a little waiting in line and rushing to get a good spot once they let you in, but we were able to score front row seats after waiting in line for just a few minutes.

The Pirates of the Caribbean was one of my favorite parts

The princesses were my other favorite part, their floats were all so pretty!

All of the characters on the Mark Twain was such an adorable and perfect finale!

Fantasmic is pure magic, just like all Disney shows!