New Year's 2008

Happy New Year everyone! We had a wonderful time with the Peichel family. Its a tradition we've had for the last 4-5 years is to have them over on New Year's Eve. They spend the night and celebrate New Year's/Christmas together. The kids look forward to it all year!

We had dinner right away and then broke out the chocolate fountain, the kids loved it! Next we opened gifts and enjoyed some more laughs. The big finale for the evening was the traditional fireworks display. Joe and I get everything setup and then strategize on how work our way through the fireworks, maintaining a steady stream of ooo's and aah's. I suppose that's rather entertaining as well.

After the fireworks and more snacks the kids settled down in the basement to watch "High School Musical 2" (thanks Auntie Tara!). The grown-ups threatened them with deportation (to the upstairs bedrooms) if anyone got rowdy or made a peep after lights out. We then settled down to play our annual game of Texas Hold'em poker. Darin got his revenge on Kim this year after being and will hold the title for 2008. Check out the funny video of Joe misreading his hand. ;-) After that we played a game of Fact or Crap until 0:00!

The next morning we circled the laptops at the kitchen table and planned out the day. Since it was too cold to go sledding or ice skating we decided to do lunch at Dave and Busters (kind of less annoying Chuck-E-Cheese with descent food). Everyone had a blast, hard to beat skee ball and air hockey. After that went to the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks, which the kids loved.

All in all, an excellent start to the new year. Best wishes to all!