New Year's Eve

We had a very entertaining New Year's Eve.  In the early afternoon, we joined Uncle Lee at the Peaks Ice Arena to do some ice skating.  Lee was meeting some friends, and worried that he would be there with a single woman and her children, and it might look weird.  So we went along as "chaperones," even though the place was incredibly busy and the woman brought her ex-husband.  Even if we didn't technically need to be there, we had a marvelous good time skating.  We were there with many, many, many other people, and had to be very alert so as not to skate into other people.  Brandt doesn't love to ice skate, but he was a good sport.  Kent, too, who hasn't been on ice skates in years.  Blythe and Lilly Bradford who we took with us, skated around and around, hardly even stopping so I could take a picture. 

And speaking of pictures, there isn't a good one in the bunch.  I was trying to take them with my phone camera, I was in motion and those I was taking a picture of were in motion, and the lighting wasn't brilliant.  But it is photographic evidence, so there we are.

After a bit of a pause in the afternoon activity (Blythe to play with Lilly, Brandt to watch TV), we met Lee, Cammie, and Cammie's siter Alice for Thai food.  This is a New Year's Eve tradition, but sadly for us, our regular Thai restaurant was closed.  We tried a new place that was good, but not as good as our favorite.

After dinner, we went to Mike and McKenzie Drake's house for our other traditional New Year's Eve activity, a family-friendly, ring-in-the-new-year, end-of-year extravaganza with tree burning at 9:00pm, and lots of food and visiting beforehand.  Mike entertains 30+ kids in the basement while their parents visit upstairs.  About 8:30 there is a dance party, with the children all dressed in dark clothing and covered in glow sticks they have either taped to or wrapped around themselves.  We are always in charge of the tree burning, as the first year we were invited, we offered to bring one, and who doesn't love a tree burning?  It's marvelous good fun for everyone, and we still get the young people in bed at a "reasonable" time. 

Here's to the end of 2018 and the start of 2019!