New Year's Eve

For the past several years, we have been invited to New Year's Eve parties, but have stayed home and had a quiet evening together.

Last New Year's Eve we spent in a hospital room, drinking cranberry juice and watching New Year's Eve on t.v.

This year, our niece and her family, who have a place here at the lake just a few doors down from us, wanted to have a party.

Hey, a party we can walk to and walk home from, without fighting traffic and dodging drunks. What a deal.

Our son and his family came.

Some cousins came.

Some extended family came.

About fifteen of us, five of whom were teenagers, and we had a great time playing a game called Werewolf, the point of which is to see who is the most convincing liar.

A little drinking.

A lot of eating.

Family stories that made us laugh until we cried.

A guitar lesson that made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe.

Some people want to be out among the crowd, with all the alcohol and smoke and noise, waiting for the ball to drop at midnight.

For us, midnight came and went without much notice, because we were so involved with each other.

We told our resolutions, some funny, some serious, and talked about the future, with one of the teens leaving for college next summer, and about the past, and good times together.

Not very exciting by some people's standards, but for us...it's the time of our lives.