Celebrating New Years!

Celebrating New Years with my family has been one of my favorite family traditions. When I was about 16 years old, my Mother and Father started the tradition of taking the entire family, with dates out for a nice dinner. We then would go back to their house and celebrate in the New Year. They started this so that they could have us safe with them and not on the streets with all the drunks. We have been doing this ever since.

My Father and Brother

While we are almost always all together, there have been a few times that someone is out of town. This year my two oldest nieces, one who just got engaged and one who had to go back to Indiana to work, were not with us. Also my youngest sister and her husband received tickets to a Neil Diamond concert as a gift. Neil is one of my brother in laws favorite so they couldn't pass up the show. But their daughters came and they met up with us as soon as the concert was over.

My oldest brother and his wife.

We went to one of my brothers favorite steak houses. It was nice because we almost had a room to ourselves. We had plenty of room and the restaurant was compatible with having conversations with each other. It was a great dining experience.

My single brother, and niece and nephew.

The waitress was pretty good for our large party and took good care of all of our requests. They were also very good to the little ones in the group. They brought their food first and kept them happy with their Shirley Temples and orange juice.

Dinga and Dingo, alias my older sister and her husband.

The adults got to share a great bottle of red and white wine. It was funny seeing my nephew, who turned 21 on October 15th, drinking with us! It is always amazing to realize how old we are all getting.

My brother who is a year older than me and his wife.

When dinner was done we enjoyed some really good desert. The cheesecake and the brownie mud pie ala mode were all so good. We were all very full and satisfied when we left about three hours later! We had a great relaxing time celebrating the end of 2008.

My husband and I!

I had fun playing with my camera at dinner. I don't know if everyone else had as much fun with it as I did! My sister took this picture of me and my husband. It is one of only a very few of myself this Christmas. When you have the camera, you don't end up in very many pictures! I of course like this.

The Grasshopper and her husband, alias my youngest sister.

My niece, two nephews and my other niece.

My nephew sporting his new haircut.

The youngest cousins posing outside on the bench before dinner.

My sister and her husband made it to my Dad's almost the same time that we made it home from dinner. We only had about an hour to wait for the year to end. We got out the champagne and apple cider for all to toast and waited for the year to end. We did the countdown at midnight and then toasted in the new year!

At midnight the kids went out and lit sparklers. This is one of their favorite things!

We had a great 2008, with its sorrows and joys. I pray that the Lord will bless us with a great 2009. We are looking forward to new additions this year with a wedding and hopefully maybe even a baptism!