New Years Eve & New Years Day

Even though we're already into the first week of 2011, I thought I'd share how we spent New Years Eve.  We had flown out to Grandma and Grandpa Carlson's in Kearney, Nebraska on December 15th to be with everyone for Christmas.  We had been wanting to get to the newly opened Children's Museum and finally on New Years Eve we made it!  We went with JR and his family too (however, August, Seth and Joseph didn't come since it was geared to kids 10 and under).  It had snowed a bunch the night before and it was -20 degrees!  When the wind hit you, it literally took your breath away!  Anyway, we all get bundled up and head over there.  It was really a F.U.N. place!  They had all sorts of exhibits like a constructions zone where you built houses, a  farm area where you could "drive" a tractor and collect chicken eggs and husk corn. A firestation, a physics area, a dinosaur area, a veterinarian zone, an art zone, a sports zone with a climbing wall and tons more!  Everyone really enjoyed themselves! Here are just a couple of shots...

Nathan in the Building Zone of the Children's Museum

Ben in the Bakery at the Children's Museum

Ben, Nathan and cousin Shelby at the Farm Exhibit at the Children's Museum

Lexi and Aubrie on the Tractor

After we got home from the Museum, John and August headed out to do some "Birthday" stuff since it was also August's 14th Birthday! They went to The Cellar and got their famous Onion Rings.  Then they went over to Hastings to see if there were any books or games that August might like and then they hit Walmart to exchange the Mouse he'd gotten for Christmas that had quit working.
He had requested Chicken and Dumplings for his Birthday dinner and so when they returned, we were all ready to eat the meal!  He also requested a Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting.  Grandma Carlson made the cake :)  It was DELISH!

August right after he blew out the candles on his birthday cake

From L to R: Nathan, JR, Lori, Silas, Seth, August, Joseph, John, Ben and Shelby

After dinner, Grandma surprised Grandpa with a 4ft framed photo of Washington Praying. They had met 42 years ago at the Stake New Years Eve Dance and so it was their "anniversary".  So we spent the next couple of hours rearranging the downstairs and getting it set up with the new picture.  We then busted out Balderdash and all of the adults along with the 3 older boys (August, Seth and Joseph) all played while the younger kids watched Despicable Me down in the basement.  We were all laughing so hard during the game and it really was fun just hanging out with everyone.  At 11:58pm we paused the game and grabbed our sparkling cider and toasted to a new and happy 2011!  We then returned to our game and played until about 1am.
The next day - NEW YEARS DAY, we went shopping!  Grandma spoiled us all and got John and myself some new shoes.  We also got Ben some nice school clothes that actually fit and looked really nice on him! We then continued to shop and found me some nice things to wear for church :)  When we got back home, Jared, Hope and their kids had arrived and so had Kathryn and Morgan!  We ate a yummy ham and baked potato dinner and then stayed up until 3AM doing XBox Kinnect tournaments!  It was so much fun and we were all laughing so hard that our stomachs hurt!  We started off by doing a "Boys vs Girls" in different events like Bowling, ping pong, soccer, boxing, javelin throwing, hurdles, etc.... the first even was the javelin and Uncle Jared was like "I'm so good at this, I'll take on this event."  He performed quite well and none of us girls wanted to go up against him.  Finally Grandma decided she'd try it and guess what!?   She blew his score out of the water!!!  From there it was all downhill as us girls won pretty much every event!  It was really a wonderful New Years being able to be with all of my family and I'm just so grateful for the privilege we had to spend 3 magical weeks together!