Wow, the holidays are over and a new year has begun! I'm so excited for 2012! It is almost palpable the positive energy I am feeling about this new year! It's hard to believe that the holidays are over already! It was such a fun holiday season for our family, one of my very best holidays yet. Paula came into town on December 18 and stayed with us most of the time she was here. It was so great to have my 'older and wiser' :-) sister here with me to help me with all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc! The Allen's had a big family get together on Christmas Eve which was a blast. So many of our out of town family was here for the holidays, so we were only missing a few. Lots of fun and food and evening went by too quickly. So good to see our far away family members. Christmas day was nice and quiet for us, Paula went to Cameron and Carrie's (her son and DIL) for a few days, and it was just us. Having one hour of church was odd and coming home after church, it sort of felt like it was just another Sunday. Scott had off the day after Christmas, so it was nice to have him home longer than usual. Our friends from San Diego, The Turners (aka TheFuzzins), took their daughter, Tamsyn to the MTC for her mission to the Idaho Pocatello Mission, where she will be serving as a Spanish speaking missionary on the Idaho Falls Temple Square. After a very long and trying trip, they were able to get her to the MTC just in time for her appointed meeting time, and then came to our house following. It was SOOOO good to see them! We had them here for several days; we ate and shopped and played and stayed up late and all of us picked up where we had left off. (Isn't it great when you can see your besties and pick up where you left off last...true friendship!) All the fuzzins all had a great time. (Poor Kai missed out on a day or so fun when he was down with the stomach flu.) New Year's Eve we decided to celebrate with food, hats, music, etc and it was great! We ate all kinds of appetizers and watched Coldplay live in Austin while we partied! It was great, all of us were singing and enjoying it to the fullest! (Except Grandma Jo who was asleep.) When it was 12:00, it was like the house exploded! We got our horns, poppers, fireworks, and started making the most noise possible. (At one point I was worried that we woke mom up and scared her, but she said she wished she was with us! LOL!) We all went from the front door, to the back door, back to the front door, etc. for probably 20 minutes! Tracy was hilarious, collecting and blowing as many horns at one time as possible! It was so much fun! THAT is the way to start off a GREAT year! Below are some pics of our New Years Eve bash...
