NYE

We had exactly and precisely zero plans for New Year's Eve . . . ding! C is celebrating his NYE birthday, your boys are invited for pizza, video games, and to stay the night! Ding! I know it's last minute, but we're going ice skating this afternoon, would you like to join us? Also Ding! We'd love if you could come over tonight for appetizers and board games, that is if you don't already have plans. Ding! Ding! Ding! Our potentially very boring New Year's suddenly became a hive of activity, fun activity no less :) The boys had the hardest decision--stay with their original plan to spend the night at their buddy's birthday party or get picked up with our NGFs' son and my nephew's doppelganger to join the party with the rest of us over the border. What to do?! First--we skate.

Ice skating with our NGFs and a couple of kiddos they were helping take care of for the day turned out to be a great way to spend the afternoon. We arrived ahead of the crowd, and our kids appreciated the free space to try to rediscover their skills. Looking back through blog posts and albums, it has been two years since they skated, and it was two years before that that they skated for the first time. These statistics seem unreliable to me, but my history recording methods usually prove fairly steady in other family event researches. Brennen isn't a huge fan of skating, but he liked hanging out in the friend pod at center ice. Here's some super exciting skating footage for you to enjoy:

G$ got tired of sliding, said he's more of a running type guy, and came to sit on the sidelines--with frequent visits from the ice skaters still on blades. Speaking of blades, we saw one of my worst ice fears come true when a lady's hand met with someone's skate. It took awhile to get her bandaged and the ice cleaned, but Caelan said the lady seemed in good spirits by the time she left to, no doubt, get some stitches in her hand.

After skating, we headed home to get ready for all of our evening festivities. Gifts were wrapped, overnight bags were packed (Brennen packed a stick of deodorant and a comb, what else would he need?), and bingo prizes were collected. I sent an appetizer list to Buck and he went to town buying up all the after-Christmas treats, gift baskets, a jar of whole peaches (which looked like a science experiment), a bag of coffee, etc. etc. which really rounded out the bingo prize table at our NGFs house. As you can see from the photo below, Buck was pretty comfy back there :) His addition of beet chips and my fancy ramen (that we've been trying to pawn off on our friends at at least the past three events) were the first prizes selected! Our emcee played music, Celebration and All I Do is Win, after BINGO was called and the winning contestants did a victory dance/walk to the prize table for their reward :)

After the first rounds of bingo, compete with ball spinner because we're very official in our bingo playing, we took a break, so the big boys could be part of the prize collecting when they got picked up by the dads at 10:30. In the meantime, we snacked on spanakopita, taquitos, baklava, mini pigs in a blanket, fancy cheese and crackers, candy popcorn, mini cookies, lemonade, all the yummy things!

Graysen decided to stay at his original party, Brennen came back to stay the night with our NGFs' son and 15-year-old uncle, and Gabby stayed over, too. Our NGFs had quite a houseful as the parents of the other two little ones, said, "Bring them back tomorrow!" Those parents needed a break, for sure. But back to bingo--the big boys joined in the fun, and maybe even did some dancing on their way to the table, too.

These two began a tradition on our last vacation, each requesting the other bring his pipe to evening campfires at each other's homes :) Buck's NGF dropped by a nice tobacco shop earlier that day to restock their supplies. He was pretty impressed with Buck's corncob pipe upgrade for Christmas (and now wants his own pipe stand). My NGF told them to look contemplative; here's my pic of her taking the pic below (the moon was huge and stunning that night; I'm glad she captured it in her photo :)

As the clocked ticked toward midnight, we filled plastic cups with sparkling cider, gathered all the kids, did the countdown, and toasted the new year! We also spent some time in prayer, Buck and his NGF thanking God for the year we've had, the memories we've made, the growth we've experienced, and the hopes for the coming year. I've never really started a new year that way before, but it was pretty awesome!

Believe it or not these pictures were taken at just before two in the morning! I'm sure our dogs at home thought we'd lost our minds :) One week later, same fireplace, same friends, same photographer daughter trying her best to make four "old people" look good for their photo. Lol! Happy New Year!