New Year's Eve

Gramma Gail came over to watch Kenzie so Kristie and I could go out.

Our original plan was for a rather quiet evening out with our friends.

Didn't quite work out that way.

We met up with Lon and Sara and Lance and Krissy at Lance's place.

Now, I should stop here and add that Lance and I together - anytime really - but especially on New Year's never really works out well. There was the time we inadvertantly crashed my Grand Am. We were coming back from a friend's house. Wisely, Lance was driving as I had had too much to drink. Lance was not used to my Grand Am and foolishly stated that my emergency break was on. What he didn't realize was that the light always stayed on. Instead of notifying him of this, I simply said, "No, it isn't." And proceeded to crank on the emergency break. At 55 mph.

Not good.

I recall Lance suddenly spinning around me screaming, "What the hell?" as the car spun out of control. Eventually we landed in a field, rolling onto the driver's side and then back on all four wheels.

I quickly got out and ran around to Lance's side to check on him.

I couln't help but notice my pulverized driver's side mirror on the ground (I had just replaced it because a few months earlier Lance and I were leaving a party and I was trying to back up and ended up backing next to a tree and taking out my original driver's side mirror).

I quickly threw open the door, fearing the worst because Lance had not said anythign since we tipped. When I opened the door to get Lance out, he took one look at the crushed mirror in my head and uttered, "that damned things gets it every time, doesn't it?"

Obviously, he was okay.

But things would get worse. Some of our friends were following us on our way into town and stopped on the highway to help. Worse yet, another friend was coming from town to see if she could still catch us at our friend's house before he headed into town. She saw the carsh and also stopped on the highway to help.

Worst of all, though, another group of friends were far behind us all as they headed to town. For some reasons that remain unclear to this day - some 16 years later - they didn't see the cars stopped on the road, and slammed right into them.

Lance and I were just standing out in the field taking all of this in.

"That's not good," Lance said. And we rushed to help everyone else out.

Miraculously, no one was hurt.

Of course, we all joked over this over beers at Lance's this year. Of course, one story led to another and before we knew it, time was running short. It was a good think Krissy thought to call Lakeview because they stopped serving at nine.

We made it in time for their excellent chicken and ribs buffet.

Lakeview was one of my parents' favorite places - it was only about 8 miles or so from our home.

So it was nice to spend most of the evening there. We only spent a fraction of our time eating though. Most of the time was spent visiting and catching up since we had not really been out together since the summer. Oh, yeah, and a lot of Coronas were imbibed too.

Then it was off to RLF where we paid Sara's brother, Danny and his wife Donelle, a visit in their gorgeous new home just north of RLF.

Once midnight passed, we headed back to RLF and stopped by Big Swen's.

We honestly didn't intend on spending the entire evening there, but when we finally got home, I glanced at the clock: 3:30!

It was a blessing that Gail was home babysitting because when Kenzie was up bright and early at 8 am, Kristie and I were still groggy and glad Gail was there to love her up and play with her.

It might be New Year's 2011 before we get out again after this one! But it was fun. We're just getting too old to recover as is!