Happy New Year!

This last week has been a fun, lazy week filled with great food, fun games, and amazing friends- a wonderful way to send off 2008 and start 2009. For Christmas, I gave Jon two of our new favorite games- Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride Europe. We have played Ticket to Ride no less than a few dozen times this past week- before breakfast, during lunch, just before bed. We play alone as a couple, with Hailey and Natalie, and with our great friends who we are so grateful haven't gotten sick of us calling them to play, the Bowers. If you haven't heard of the game, it is a European board game where you take destination tickets and build a train between your routes without getting cutting off by the other players who are in turn completeing their routes. Great fun! Couple it with a few games of Sequence (what Jon likes to call strategic Connect Four for adults) and a few hands of Golf (a fun card game) and it's like a mini vacation with best friends!

So we started celebrating New Years Eve a few days early with game nights and a night out with the Bowers to Texas Roadhouse for our last big meal out before we start taking this whole gym membership thing seriously. ;) Then on New Years Eve, our stake had a fabulous evening planned for the youth with dancing, volleyball, a variety show, treats, a wonderful video, a balloon drop and breakfast at midnight. Hailey is 12, so this was her first party and she had a blast. Jon even got to show up at 1030 to be in the variety show. Our bishopric did the skit Cow Pattie, a family favorite. Jon sang the song with the guitar, while Jeff wore a red "Wendy's" wig and rode his trike, while Drew played the villian with his turned up moustache. If you haven't heard the song you can see it on youtube. it's a riot and I think the youth really enjoyed watching the bishopric let loose and have fun. I went to watch the skit and was delighted to see another act that is quite popular on youtube- synchronized swimming. It felt so good to laugh hard and see Hailey having so much fun too.

After the skit, we came home and played one more game of Sequence and Ticket to Ride for the year with friends Julie and Jeff and finished off a bit more of our fantastic spread of party food. Then we counted down the last seconds of 2008. At midnight we let the kids scream Happy New Year from our upstairs balcony and then stayed out there for the next five minutes watching all the great fireworks being shot off around us. Not quite Disney, you know without the castle in the foreground of the fireworks and all, but, yes, Julie and I did sing "Wishes" as we watched them. ;)

We were all in bed by 1 am and didn't bother to roll out of bed until well after 9. We had a great breakfast of French Toast and then immediately decided to tackle a project we had always wanted to do last year. Move the darn computer upstairs into the den. Jon had to completely disassemble the desk to move it and then put it back together upstairs. (He's my hero!!!) Then we moved up the big filing cabinent we got to organize our life, but has been sitting in the garage for 2 years. We were set up for success, but then there was the whole issue of getting the DSL to work up there. This is when you find out who your best friends are. Our Ticket to Ride partner in crime, Shad Bowers, is a manager at Qwest and knows a few things about the whole telephone/DSL/crazy wires that make life work and worth living but no one really understands how world and he heard our cries for help and so fabulously came over to see what we had going on in. He made it look as easy as brushing your teeth, and did it that fast too. It is so great when you have smart friends with many talents! (He is also really good at figuring out the directions to new games and at keeping the score updated in Ticket to Ride among many other things. Thank you Shad! We so appreciate you!) All is very right in the world now. What a great way to start a new year!

Oh, but wait! A New Year must also bring new challenges. So, we went over to the Bowers for a real challenge - Ticket to Ride Europe. Same idea but with cities you can't pronounce, tunnels and train stations. Add a few hands of Golf, Diet Coke with fresh lime, and Katie's fabulous mint chocolate brownies and that is what a New Years Day should be. They say whatever you do on the first day of the year, sets the tone for what you'll be doing all year long. So come over to our newly organized home, because we'd love to play some games and share more laughter and fun in the year to come with YOU!