New Year's Eve 2010

First of all, happy 2011 everyone!
It sure is weird to think that it's 'next year' already. 2010 seemed to go by way too fast...
But I'm here to talk about my new year's eve, not philosophize about the mysteries of time.
Actually, I'm not planning to do a lot of typing. I have pictures! And, a picture is worth a thousand words, you know... (even though the number 1000 is completely arbitrary, I'm sure. I would have placed the value of a picture more in the range of 400 words)

Anyway, we and the Leavitts went up to Albany (Oregon, of course) to a friend's house for New Year's Eve. Friends of the Leavitts, that is. I had only briefly met them before Friday night. They're really cool people with lots of kids...and a huge house. We had dinner not too long after we arrived, and when I was done eating I picked up my camera and snagged pictures for the rest of the long evening...
Most of the boys took a long time to eat, and carried on an animated conversation the whole time.

The adults also were busy conversing

After everyone had eaten, most of the young people started a game of charades.

Laughter abounded for about half an hour, until the game kind of fizzled out. Everybody milled around for a while after that, playing foosball, talking, wandering around....finally Nate started a game of Balderdash. That was the most fun of the entire evening.

We played the game on through midnight, and the only response to Paul's announcement that it was now 12:01, Jan. 1, 2011, was a couple of "oh, good"s and a smile or two. An anticlimactic New Year's, if you ask me, but it must be conceded that the meaning of the acronym SAI was, at that particular time, of more on everyone's mind than the time and date.
At about half past twelve, we went out onto the street to light off some fireworks. It was bitterly cold, but the show kind of made up for it.

  It was 2:30 by the time we left to go home, and an hour more before we got home. I was dead tired, but I guess it's worth it.