New Years Eve

New Years Eve this year consisted of our usual tradition of hanging out at a Brighton cabin with a bunch of neighborhood friends. Since New Years day falls on a Sunday, we came up to sleep over on Friday night and spent all day Saturday hanging out, sledding, watching movies and playing games. We didn't do any skiing this year. We had plans to, but Owen threw up during the night. Since he was sick, Corey took him home, and with Corey gone with his hands tied up, that made it hard to ski, since Corey is the one that makes that happen. We got all the kids measurements on Friday, and our plan for him to go down to the valley and rent skis and then come back up changed. They were disappointed, sorry kids. But there was still plenty to do and they had fun sledding. Here is a picture of Melodie playing with Daniel in the upstairs playroom, which is also the room where we slept. Cute little chair for Daniel to sit in~ oh we love him so much!

Daniel is all ready to tell us a story "When I was a little boy..."

Joseph, Ethan, and Hyrum all headed down for home around 4 to get ready for a New Years Eve concert that they had to perform in for their Soundhouse group. Call time was 6. Hyrum and Ethan's Little big Band group was first around 7, then Ethan and Joseph performed with their Voodoo band at 9:15-10. Corey came back up with Owen at 7. I thought he was going to wait for Hyrum and bring him back up. One thing about that... Hyrum got a ride home with a friend after his performance was done, he got home around 8:45. His phone was dead but he called us with his friends phone before they dropped him off. He was sure he knew where the key was. But he didn't call after getting inside the house, and the house phone didn't answer when we called. Most all the neighbors were up at the cabin with us. We were trying to make sure he got inside okay. Our friend that he got a ride with said they invited him to hang out with them at their house, but he wanted to go to bed and so said no. She said she waited and saw a light come on, so we thought he was okay. I got in touch with one neighbor and asked her to go knock. She did but no one answered, but their were lights on, so we figured he went inside and had gone to bed. So, at 10:00 at the cabin, we live streamed the ball drop in New York - great idea!

That way we were able to celebrate, but also able to head home and get to bed a little earlier. Brilliant. So here we are at 10:00 Utah time with the countdown... I spy four Wrides...

It was a big party house! At the new year, the kids can go run a lap around the cabin in the snow barefoot to become members of the Polar Bear Club. Wes joined the club this year, good job buddy! It was a lot colder than he expected. and he also didn't enjoy how his feet would break the top layer of snow and he'd sink in with each step. Yeah, that part is no fun. So, the hour before "midnight" we gathered our things and loaded them in the van. After cheering in the new year, we got our coats on and headed out. Ethan and Joseph had beat us home and they were the first ones to discover a sad little Hyrum that had been locked out in the cold for 2+ hours...

Such abandonment would have scarred other children for life, but not our humble Hyrum, He took it well. We gave him lots of hugs and apologies, told him how we called and how we had tried to make sure he made it in... sorry! Then we also gave all the kids a lecture about keeping their stinkin' phones charged, how the only reason they have phones is so that we can get a hold of them! Maybe their phones are not serving their primary purpose cause you guys waste your batteries taking advantage of all the smart phone properties it offers, but we might dumb your phones down if you can't keep them charged, this is ridiculous!

And then we all went to bed, we have church bright at early in the morning, new time schedule at 9 am!