How our family ushered in 2009

Matthew and Mom in the cool tent Great Auntie snagged for him. It was the first time it came out and it made big impression.

Mom startled by the camera.

Matthew insisted on playing outside today and wandered into the shed. There he immediately spotted my wreck of a well loved Radio Flyer tricycle. Of course he had to crawl up on it and of course I had to take his picture.

Taking off to explore parts unknown with the faithful yorkies...

Getting my picture taking on New Years Eve. Completely sober I promise. Just excited that I was going out to the bar on New Years Eve for the first time in 7 years!

Assuring my camera reluctant husband we have to take a picture together.

Ok, I try again because I only got half of his face. In this one he looks out of it, but he hadn't been drinking either so I'm sure it was because the photo session was being prolonged.

Phil finally took over the picture taking because I didn't have a long enough arm to get his head in the picture right.

Phil and Angela's coat in the lower corner at the street concert. She ducked out of the shot at the last second, grrrrrr....

The band.

Yep, it was Eve6. I nearly lost my toes, until I put my gloves on them, just to watch them. (Yes, in 28 degree weather I insisted on wearing my cool open toed heels because they looked good with my outfit. It was New Years Eve people. It only took 20 minutes for them to stop hurting once we got back in the club.)

Angela wearing a New Year Eve hat backwards. I called it the tin man look. Thank you for graciously allowing me to take the picture.


I took lots of great pics for the New Year. In fact I didn't drink a drop of alcohol, but you'd never know it from my smile. I was taking pictures before we even left! Well, back tracking a bit, Sunday I washing the last load of clothes, when I found out my step aunt and uncle were in town and if we wanted to see them we needed to leave right away. So I did what any rational person that hadn't seen their family in a couple years would do. I left it in the washing machine. I left it all soggy wet knowing I wouldn't be around till Wednesday at some point to deal with it. We made it in time to probably chat for 30 mins. and show off Matthew. After that it was up to Phil's, hung out with my Auntie, shared a car with Phil (first time in our marriage we had only 1), grocery shopped, cooked, and cleaned. Matthew was bored without his new toys so he insisted on dragging our vacuum around.

Ok, now it's Wednesday around 2 in the afternoon. Phil's just gotten off work. We have realized that Phil has no clean pants because they are all in the load of laundry that got ditched. We now realize that we have zoom home and do laundry before we can go anywhere. So we pack up and head to my parents. They graciously agreed to watch Matthew for the night so we can go out with my friend Angela. Matthew was so glad to be away from Dad's boring pad that he just kissed us goodbye and turned his back on us. We hustled down the road to our house and dragged all our stuff in. Then we started the laundry again and I went off in search of an outfit. I was in such a good mood I started taking pictures before we left. We made it to my friend's and managed to find a parking spot not too far away from the Ville. We went to a new club and managed to snag the last table. After Phil and Angela drank a beer and I a coke, Angela assured me we had to go out in the cold and freeze my toes to listen to the concert. I don't remember any of it, because of the stuff going on around us, except to wonder if they had to cuss so much in their farewell speech. GEEZ, am I a mom or what. Around this time is when I thought my toes were going to fall off, so I pulled my gloves on over my feet. It helped, but should have been done much earlier. Anyway, then because midnight was 20 mins away we stayed outside so that we would have a good spot to watch the apple drop, but it was a mistake. You see, Phil had the idea we should get as close as the barrier would allow. But the mob pressed in all around us shoving. Then the drunk guys wanted to tear down the barricade. That brought the cranky cops over. After more compressing and shoving the count down started and 2 new drunk guys started a fight, which was causing me to nearly fall. This enraged me enough to start screaming more cuss words at them then the band probably said. After 15 seconds (which felt like 2 hours), Phil decided it was time to move me so neither him or I got into a fight. After that we cruised back into the club and managed to snag an abandoned reserved table. We waited till Angela drank another beer (all the while laughing at all the trashed crabby couples) and cruised out of there before all the drunk people got kicked out. After snagging some Burger King we drove back to my parents, relieved Mom of her post, and crawled into bed around 2:30. Happy New Year!

Today we ended up staying at my parents all day. Matthew played and said "Blast off" several times for the first time. He was copying his Retro Rocket. Mom and I worked on putting our Halloween puzzle together finally. And everyone watched the Monk marathon. That was a treat considering we don't have any channels at our house. Mom and Dad assured us that the 3 of them had a wonderful evening. We are hoping to get some sleep tonight and have another relaxing day tomorrow, but considering we're still up and it's really late, I think lots of sleep in out. I think the relaxing day is out because we have never ending errands to run! But we'll see. 3 more days of much needed vacation left.