Happy 2010!

Here's hoping that all my readers are happy and healthy now in the new year. I also hope that you had fun ringing in the new year... here's what we did...

Joel and I drove up to a small town just outside Madison, WI to the home of KA & AA to celebrate in a very adult fashion... and by that I just mean that it was 5 married couples (and a toddler) having a dinner party...not fancy or anything, but, a far cry from the parties that many of us were engaging in only a few years ago it seems. Ah, life is changing. And not in a bad way- it just catches me off guard sometimes. :)

Joel and I got up pretty darn early the morning of the 31st (after having gone to bed pretty darn late on the 30th) to have breakfast with my brother and sister in law, and dad and step-mom. My bro and SIL were headed back to Colorado later that day, so this was our goodbye breakfast. It was lovely, and I miss them already! It was so great to see them again!

After breakfast we drove to the W's house which is about an hour from our final destination in Wisconsin. The great thing was that my dear friend DB and her husband were already at the W's, so we got to sit around, chat, and very typically, eat ice cream for a couple hours. It was great. Once we got moving we had to stop at a couple stores before heading to the party house. Man, I think we can all agree that shopping at 5pm on NYE is probably not a good idea. Especially not for booze. Thankfully, we didn't mind that much because it just gave us all more time to talk. :) There was nothing we could do about the lines, so we made the best use of the time! :)

Anyway, my point in all that detail is basically to say that by the time we reached our destination around 7, I think, it had already been a pretty darn long day. I was feeling a bit fatigued, but of course, there was more work to be done, a dinner to be prepared and all that, so we kept on keeping on!

The women set to work in the kitchen while the guys.... well, until it was meat time, I'm actually not sure what they were doing. They weren't in the kitchen though. :)

I know people were regularly heading outside into the FREEZING temps to have a smoke or hang out with people who were partaking... *I* did not do that. It was **SO** cold that night!
I guess maybe the alcohol I also was not consuming helped keep this trio warm!

Joel took all the pictures that night...here's one of the grill. From what I understand the prawns were lovely, and the beef unfortunately got way overcooked.

Our host, the man who spent the rest of the night apologizing about the beef. :)
(I think everyone forgave him!)

A blurry picture of the festively set table.

Maggie the very excitable dog who seemed to particularly like to jump on me. The toddler and I did our best to stay out of her way. :) She is a very cute dog though.

Back in the kitchen, women still at work. And Joel is taking pictures of my belly.
The belly on NYE.

Sisters KA and DB working it in the kitchen. And KA is like, REALLY working it. :)

Cutting up the sushi rolls. We made 20 rolls, no 19 (there was 1 piece of nori left at the end) rolls of sushi!! DB and I were rolling fools. The bad thing was that the whole time we were rolling we were munching on avocado and cucumber (not to mention the ridiculously good appetizers AW had made)... didn't leave much room in my belly to actually eat when dinner time rolled around.

And then of course, we magically jump to a shot of us AFTER dinner. :) There was SO much food left over! There was so much good food in the first place. I only had eyes for salad and sushi, but if you look closely at my plate in the picture, you can see that I only managed to eat my sushi. It's amazing how once you have someone else taking up space in your belly, you just CAN'T eat the way you used to.

At this point after dinner, it was probably near 11pm, which means already past midnight our time (there is an hour time difference between MI and WI) and I was SO TIRED. It was literally all I could do to sit at that table and stay awake until midnight local time.

When we moved to the comfy chairs I didn't move again until midnight. :)

I don't think I was the only one kind of tired...but I was the only one not drinking, which probably made the difference in who went to bed around 1 and who around 4:30.

I think I took this picture. I think Joel was working on being a hick.

Happy New Year! Just past midnight...

All our men in their party hats

And us gorgeous ladies and our crowns

Belly and champagne in the same picture... so sue me. I had one glass. Moonshine kicked a lot after that...and I had a headache all the next day/evening. Really doesn't seem worth it in the end.

At some point after midnight we did all head outside to participate in the old Latvian tradition of melting lead, and then pouring the liquid lead into cold water to make a new form that you can then interpret as a fortune for the next year. The piece I poured was interpreted by pretty much everyone as a wing, protecting things. I said it's obviously my mamma bird year. :) My mom and step-dad on seeing it a few days later said it looked like a cradle as well, though the wing shape was totally obvious to them as well. Joel managed to pour 4 long, thin strips. When I asked him what he was thinking of the whole thing, his only answer was bacon. When he had bacon the next morning, well, I guess his fortune had come true!

The next morning I had a lovely surprise when a friend of mine who I worked with in China wrote me a message on facebook saying it was just too ridiculous that we were so close (she lives in Madison as well) and not going to see each other. So she was a super good sport and drove round. It was great to see her. We only hung out for an hour or so (she said something about needing to go back to bed...she had had a much more raucous NYE than I), but it was really lovely to see her.

(How is it just not fair that she gets to have so much lovely, fluffy hair, and I get... well, THAT!?!? Sorry... bad tangent...)

So that was it... we had breakfast that morning with all our friends and then we had to take off! Joel was scheduled to fly out the next day and still needed to get back to pack up, etc, so we had to go. It sucks driving back to MI from WI because you lose an hour with the time change. So you think you're doing well leaving at 12, but really, it's already 1 and you're behind schedule. So we kind of had to rush out, which sucked, because when you only see your friends once a year, you want to spend as much time with them as possible! Luckily, I can still see most of these people in the next 7 months...

So there you go...that's the recap of how we welcomed in 2010! Nothing too exciting, but a good time with good friends. Mostly, I'm just excited that 2010 is the year we get to meet Moonshine face to face (although if you're interested in seeing what that face might look like, head over to 9 Months with Moonshine to find out). 2009 was really a good year, but I'm thinking 2010 is going to be great. Looks like it just keeps getting better! :)