2008 Is Off To A Great Start! :)

I was really hoping to be able to go to my mom and dad's house for New Year's Eve. My sister and I gave my parent's a very large picture of us and our families for Christmas and I haven't seen it yet. I really needed to go to the store, too, and with a new Wal-Mart in their town, it would have been the perfect opportunity for me to go without my kids. There's always a method to my madness. ;)

I called Josh on his lunch break to let him know the plan, and he said that the roads were really icy. He preferred that I didn't try to drive all that way since the tires are not so good on the van. I asked him if he thought it would be okay for me to go into the Heights just to pick up a few things, and he said he thought that would be fine since we hadn't seen any snow at our house yet.

It ended up being a really bad idea. The hill in front of Wal-Mart was like an ice skating rink; cars were sliding all over the place trying to stop at the light, and attempting to avoid the wreck already blocking the road. The van slid about 50 ft. and I wasn't going more than 15 miles and hour when I started to brake. There were wrecks at almost every intersection we came to, but, praise the Lord, we made it back home safely. I don't think there was even snow in the forecast for that day, but it froze as soon as it hit the ground. It was just a light dusting of snow, too. Apparently, just enough to make driving treacherous.

So, my mom and sister came up with the idea to just wait until New Year's Day, and have a homemade chili and sopapilla feast. There were also chips with homemade salsa, an apple pie, and an unrolled pumpkin roll, and my sister made her famous Southern Sweet Tea. :)

We had a ball! We cooked the meal first thing, and played games and munched the rest of the day. We had two humongous heaping pans full of sopapillas that we didn't think we'd ever be able to finish.

We were wrong. :)

At the very last minute we decided to invite Amanda and Riky and the boys over to get in on all the food and fun, and by the time they arrived, there were only three left! That is just sinful! LOL We're all a bunch of pigs!

We played Spoons and Balderdash, and had a marvelous time! I can't believe we've never done that before. We've been missing out on tons of fun. Amy and Johnny, Amanda and Riky, and Josh and I get along so well, and while my mom and dad were here they played a big part in all the fun too. And I almost didn't know the kids were here! That's always a plus.

Some of the high-lights of the evening were

• Amanda's definition of the word "Spong" as "the sound a diving board makes" and all of us simultaneously saying it out loud to see if it was true. Yep, it is! LOL (True definition: Spong-a piece of land shaped like a tongue.)
• Josh's definition of the word "Koomkie" as "a skirt worn by Indian warriors in El Salvador during a victory celebration." (True definition: Koomkie-A trained female elephant used to attract wild male elephants.)
• Josh's definition of the word "Zugswang" as "an intoxicating drink Korean brides are expected to drink on their wedding night." ?!?!?! (True definition: Zugswang-a bad move in a game of chess.)
• Me choosing the "dark black" game piece instead of simply saying "the black one" thankyouverymuch, and then being teased mercilessly about it at every opportunity during the remainder of the evening.
• Amanda saying that the reason Josh was winning Balderdash was because he was the oldest in the group, and Josh acting all offended about it, and making Amanda feel bad.

There were more hilarious definitions (everybody was being really creative), but there are 86 pieces of paper to go through (yep, I counted them) and I really need to get some other stuff done today so I'll leave it at that. I can hardly wait for an opportunity to do it again! Thank you Mom and Dad, Amy and Johnny, and Amanda and Riky for making January 1, 2008 such a wonderful day to remember!