New Year's New Yearling, pt. 1
DISCLAIMER: I'll start off with saying that this post will be the first on this site to actually not centralize around our little Iris. We had a crazy few days around New Years Eve/Day with a lot of wonderful people who, for the most part, do not have children of their own. We parents had a lot to juggle, including having fun, as the others looked on, some with indifference, some with gratitude that they themselves haven't gotten to "this" point yet, and very few with envy... As a result, this post is more about the fun we had with them and how well Iris slept..
The 'friend' portion of our holiday fun began before the 'family' portion ended. Our good friends Tyler and Jen with their two turtles Zak and Fen arrived on Thursday afternoon a few days in advance of the New Year. After a long drive from Michigan and a brief stint with family in Asheville, they were happy to finally settle in and stretch out their figurative (and literal) legs.
We had a good night of quiet, calm visitation. Wine. Dinner. This was the eye of the storm, the brief pause before finally succumbing to the tractor beam 'o' fun: Athens. The next night proved to be much more raucous, with many a college friend aggregating for one night of outward bound fun. Men. You know you've crossed some sort of line, whether it be age or maturtity or something completely else, when the kind of night you're looking forward to involves no women whatsoever...
But the night didn't start out that way. Everyone, including women and children, made the initial drive up. We went a little out of the way to drop off Aunt Lorrie halfway to Atlanta and that concluded the 'family' part of the holidays. When we got there, everyone went out for a big thai dinner. Iris, having spent most of the past 3 hours in a car, was groggy and fussy, but managed to sleep through most of dinner, tucked under our table in her car seat.
Shortly after dinner was over, the kids started showing signs of weariness, and the mothers packed up and headed back home. I remember waiving, feeling the pang of separation as they drove off, only to turn back to the house and look forward to the one night in a while where I could cut loose.. As did Drew..
Beer. Koga "The Bootlegger" lived up to his reputation by hauling down a keg of wonderful Bells through seven states. How we miss that! Though the quanitity of beer the keg provided was obnoxiously more than the 10-15 of us could down in two nights, it was just the kind of excess worthy of enjoying once a year. The night in Athens had everything a group of guys could hope for (in addition to said beer)- pinball, a conversion van, shrub diving, soda can soccer, BB gun target practice at 4 AM, and pictures with stuffed animals placed inappropriately on sleeping people.
And a hangover. Breakfast was dreary for most of us, out of the question for others. The 2-hour drive home was trecherous but it felt good to get there. The house was calm and comfortable. Mama D had just calmed down from a traumatic incident (to be spoken of in the next post) and the kids wanted to watch Star Wars. All we had to do now was get some rest before everybody else showed up and maddness started once again. Star Wars it was.
The 'friend' portion of our holiday fun began before the 'family' portion ended. Our good friends Tyler and Jen with their two turtles Zak and Fen arrived on Thursday afternoon a few days in advance of the New Year. After a long drive from Michigan and a brief stint with family in Asheville, they were happy to finally settle in and stretch out their figurative (and literal) legs.
We had a good night of quiet, calm visitation. Wine. Dinner. This was the eye of the storm, the brief pause before finally succumbing to the tractor beam 'o' fun: Athens. The next night proved to be much more raucous, with many a college friend aggregating for one night of outward bound fun. Men. You know you've crossed some sort of line, whether it be age or maturtity or something completely else, when the kind of night you're looking forward to involves no women whatsoever...
But the night didn't start out that way. Everyone, including women and children, made the initial drive up. We went a little out of the way to drop off Aunt Lorrie halfway to Atlanta and that concluded the 'family' part of the holidays. When we got there, everyone went out for a big thai dinner. Iris, having spent most of the past 3 hours in a car, was groggy and fussy, but managed to sleep through most of dinner, tucked under our table in her car seat.
Shortly after dinner was over, the kids started showing signs of weariness, and the mothers packed up and headed back home. I remember waiving, feeling the pang of separation as they drove off, only to turn back to the house and look forward to the one night in a while where I could cut loose.. As did Drew..Beer. Koga "The Bootlegger" lived up to his reputation by hauling down a keg of wonderful Bells through seven states. How we miss that! Though the quanitity of beer the keg provided was obnoxiously more than the 10-15 of us could down in two nights, it was just the kind of excess worthy of enjoying once a year. The night in Athens had everything a group of guys could hope for (in addition to said beer)- pinball, a conversion van, shrub diving, soda can soccer, BB gun target practice at 4 AM, and pictures with stuffed animals placed inappropriately on sleeping people.
And a hangover. Breakfast was dreary for most of us, out of the question for others. The 2-hour drive home was trecherous but it felt good to get there. The house was calm and comfortable. Mama D had just calmed down from a traumatic incident (to be spoken of in the next post) and the kids wanted to watch Star Wars. All we had to do now was get some rest before everybody else showed up and maddness started once again. Star Wars it was.
posted by naM modnaR at 4:15 PM
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