New Year's Eve

We had a wonderful time ringing in the New Year with Mick and James, Kathy and Matt, and Michaela, Richard and Jarod. It was so nice to finally meet Michaela and her family (who were visiting from Orlando.)

We started off the evening eating appetizers and drinking Michaela's peach bowle. It was so delicious! It is one of those drinks that is so fruity and yummy that you don't really feel like you are drinking. So peach bowle is also very dangerous (ha!)! Then Mick prepared Raclette for dinner, and it was an unbelieveably delicious authentic German meal!

Jarod showed us some really cool magic tricks (which I am still trying to figure out), and then we played Cranium. With all the crazy and silly things that the game makes you do, we pretty much cracked up the whole evening. Teams draw cards that describe certain tasks to complete. There are particular cards in this game that tell one person on a team be a "puppetmaster" and the other to be a "puppet". The "puppetmaster" moves the "puppet's" arms and legs, and the "puppet" has to guess what action is taking place. Well, Doug and I got one of those cards. Doug did great, he was having me act out what a "baseball umpire" does. Of course, I couldn't remember the actual word "umpire" and I kept yelling "baseball referee!!" Let's just say Doug was a little more than frustrated with me. And obviously, we didn't get to move our game piece that turn.

About 15 minutes before the ball dropped, we turned on "Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve" and counted down to midnight. Right behind Mick and James' house, one of the neighborhoods was shooting off huge fireworks, so we watched them from the screened porch.

We didn't have our little girls to ring in the New Year with us this year, but we had each other. And that made the beginning of the new year very, very special.