Thursday night was New Year's Eve and we spent the day and evening participating in our usual traditions - ice skating in the afternoon, followed by some "quiet-time" at home (at least for the adults), and then ringing in the new year next door with the Smiths.
Ice skating went pretty well. We realized that we haven't been skating since New Year's Eve 2008, and Sam spent some time remembering how to stay on his feet. He did well, though, and skated for an hour before he and Ben had an accident that resulted in Ben falling on top of Sam. It looked worse then it was, however, but after Sam took a break to recover, he realized he was tired and wanted to quit. I had quit after about 20 minutes of skating, since someone had to put shoes on to get different gloves for Sam and the cold was bothering my sinuses anyway. So he and I had a snack while we waited for Maria and Ben to finish skating. Maria, by the way, had a blast skating fast and even trying some tricks like spinning.
Skating was followed by naps at home - for Ben and I. The kids played as they don't seem to need a nap anymore to be able to stay awake until midnight and after. After dinner we headed to the Smiths, where we exchanged our Christmas gifts with them finally. The kids played well together, and the four of us played euchre (which Lisa and I won). At midnight we watched the ball drop and the kids love to countdown, throw confetti, and blow their noise-makers. We got home about 12:30 and the kids went straight to bed. Maria slept in until 10:30 and Sam until after 11 the next morning.
We spent yesterday taking down the Christmas decorations and getting the house put back together. Both Maria and Sam had a sleepover last night with the Wilsons, so Ben and I went out to dinner and a movie. Usually New Year's Day is kind of depressing here - we don't really care about any of the football, and taking down the decorations is a reminder that vacation and the holidays are really over. But since we all had something fun to do last night, we were in a much better mood. I think we may always go out to a movie or something on New Year's Day in future years to combat the end-of-vacation blues.
Today is get-the-basement-ready-for-finishing day. We had some acquaintances come pick up the playhouse yesterday - Ben posted the picture with "free" on Facebook and we had takers within an hour. Hoping the same is true with our old china cabinet that we need to get rid of today. Look for "before" pictures of the empty basement soon as we are going to keep a photo journal of the finishing project.
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