New Years Day Eve

Well, after cleaning up from the New Years party, we cleaned up for my sister and family to come and visit for dinner. I defrosted a dream dinner from the night before and had the casserole cooking in the oven when they arrived. We laid out a spread of left overs from the New Years Eve party and waited impatiently for their arrival. They had been camping in the high desert for a week. Although we visited them last Saturday at their camp (see pictures below), we really didn't get to spend much time with them. The first words out of my sisters mouth were, "Can I use your shower?" After camping for a week in the desert, the motor home shower just didn't cut the grim. After everyone took their showers, we settled down for the evening, ate dinner, played a card game, and watch the season opening episode of Biggest Loser. The girls wanted to go in the jacuzzi so we set that up for them. So much fun. Then we sent them off at 10:00 at night so they could drive through L.A. freeways without the traffic. They were supposed to stop somewhere near Bakersfield. The advantage of driving a motor home is they could stop anywhere they want. I haven't heard yet how they are doing the rest of the journey, but they probably won't reach their destination of Brookings, OR until late tonight.

New Years Day

No pictures here. Just words.

We had a small group of friends over to the house last night. It was a very intimate party. The older girls were baby sitting all together. The younger girls stayed with us because we couldn't find a sitter for them. It turned out nice having them here. Craig had us do something special. After the first round of food was eaten, we gathered around the living room and talked about our goals for the year 2008. It was pretty special. Then he anointed us each with oil from Jerusalem and then we each took turns praying for our families. It was a special moment.

Afterwards, we play a game, that kind of flopped. Not everyone felt comfortable singing, even though the songs were from our era, the 80's. We flipped through the songs and managed to find a couple to sing. The singing came to and end when we heard this awful screaming coming from the back yard. Alley, our tabby cat was outside walking the walls. The neighbors black cat came to check out what was going on and it was on. A lot of screaming. We ran outside to rescue the cat, who is a scardy cat. We kept missing her, she'd run to the front yard, then to the back again. In the attempts to catch her and bring her in, she panicked and jumped over the pool. Well, she misjudge how far it was to the other side of the pool and landed in the pool. Consider the fact that it is winter and the pool is pretty cold. We didn't see her for about 1/2 hour later. As we were talking, David said, "Is that your cat?" There she was, trying to get in the slider. By then, she managed to dry herself pretty well.

In conclusion, we had a great evening of intimacy and fun. We rapped up the New Year watching the countdown from New York City. It was a nice time.