a day in the life: A New Year

Happy New Year! I wanted to touch on our New Year's Eve briefly, because it was the most fun NYE I've had since 2006. And real quick, let me touch on 2006. It's the only NYE I went out. I was dating Chris, and we joined Christina and her then boyfriend at a place called Diamond Dave's. Chris and I would frequent this place for the outstanding people watching. So we go there for NYE, get there at like 11:30 PM and are shoulder to shoulder that's how packed it is. It's loud, there's a DJ, as promised - fantastic people watching, and we are thirsty. Chris and Christina's then boyfriend (best to keep him out of this), head to the bar. It's prob 11:50 when they leave and now the DJ is yelling, YELLING, 2 more minutes. Then it's 1 more minute. Then we're in countdown mode. I am anxiously searching the crowds for Chris, in a bit of a panic, that we won't kiss at midnight. Weighing heavily in the back of my mind is that saying "how you spend your NYE is how you spend your year". I don't want my year spent NOT getting to kiss this guy I like so much!! So now it's 7, 6, 5...and I'm full on in a sweat. But then, it happened. Like straight out of a movie, the crowd started to part, and there was Chris holding our drinks, barreling through a crowd of people to get to me. 1! Happy New Year! He made it! And I got my kiss at midnight. 7 kisses later, our NYE, not nearly as cinematic, will be a forefront in my memory. We spent this year at home, with the girls. I started some new traditions. We played games. We danced. We sang. We ate good food. We drank good champagne. And the night ended with fireworks. How can you argue with that?! It was a simple, yet memorable evening, that I'm glad we stayed in for. Partying with our kids turns out to be a lot of fun!!

As for my new tradition...

I revamped the Christmas tree to be a New Year's Tree. I hung lots of balloons on it, among other festive silver and black items, and on each hour starting at 8 PM, we'd all pop a balloon. Most of the balloons had lottery tickets, but Cara, Sam and Chris each got a special prize balloon with a clue in it. The clue led them to various places where a prize was hidden. I loved doing this, because each hour had so much excitement to it! Sam didn't make it for the 11 PM popping, nor did she reach Midnight. Cara not only lasted until Midnight, but I'm pretty sure she was up until 1 AM.