Originally David and Brian were supposed to meet up here to go to the Sugar Bowl together. After some expensive household happenings that ate up all their trip money, they settled for watching the game at our house with family. GO UTES!!!
Brian and Wendy's clan lived in Salt Lake for a few years when we were first married. We got to be good friends with them. In fact, I remember babysitting 4 month old Clare before David and I were even married. They introduced us to lots of things as a new couple from Mediterranean dining at the Cedars of Lebanon Restaurant, to cooking restaurant quality ethnic food at home, to being parents (which is why Grace was born almost 6 YEARS AFTER we got married), and to being happy as a couple. We missed them terribly when they moved to Pittsburgh, but since we have moved to New England, we see them a bit more often now that we can make the drive in a day.Their kids have grown up. We didn't spend much time with them between the 5 year old stage and the teen-age stage, so I feel like I kind of missed out. But, they are still great kids and we were happy to have them visit. Grace was thrilled to play with Jeremiah for 3 straight days. Hattie loves her cousin Clare and is no longer terrified of Alec.
We did a few fun things while they were here. The weather wasn't too cooperative with a blizzard on New Year's Eve and bone chilling cold the other days. We went horse back riding on the blizzard day. The whole family went to our barn and got on a horse for a trail ride.
We weren't able to make it too far down the trails due to our assortment of riding abilities and the trail conditions, but we did ride out in the back fields until Alec's toes nearly fell off from cold. (this didn't take long - silly teenager out in a blizzard with no warm clothes on!) It was awesome for me to see both my kids on horses at the same time. Hattie on Peppe and Gracie on Tink.
David and I didn't ride so that we could lead the non-riders, but Grace and Hattie did an awesome job at guiding the line of horses through the ride. Brian kept telling us "cold" stories he had read about while they rode. I made a mental note to read those in JULY. I think our ride may have made it into the "coldest stories ever told" category for some of them. Rita was awesome and helped us through it and took great pictures for us.
Later on that night, we tried to fool the kids into thinking it was midnight at 10pm. Our little clock-watcher Grace was much wiser. She knew we were full of it and insisted on staying up to see the ball drop at Times Square. How does she even know about that? It's a hard thing to fake it when you live in the same time zone as Times Square. If you live out West, you can get video feed of it earlier than midnight! ALL the kids, stayed up PAST midnight. They rang in the fake New Year with a fake champagne (sparkling cider) toast at 10pm (they don't look to happy do they?) Then, they did watch the ball drop 2 hours later. So much for the adults having margaritas in peace at midnight.
On New Year's Day, we had our traditional brunch and just spent the day hanging out and eating. We went on a double date that night and left the kids home with their cousins. It was SO nice to get out and also to be with Brian and Wendy. They make great conversation and are fun to eat with. We ended up at the Colonial Inn in Concord. We've never eaten there before, but have visited the spot a few times. It's one of the original Inns from the days of the revolutionary war - built in 1716. A very New England thing to do. Glad we finally did it!
Speaking of things to do in New England, we did venture into Boston on their last day here. As we gave them the driving tour, David realized how many things there are in Boston that we have NOT seen or done yet. Our list of excuses for being such home-bodies is long and mostly legitimate. But, it mostly boils down to the amount of energy it takes to change my moment of inertia from "stuck at home" to "out on the town." The energy barrier is just far too great most of the time. But, we are running out of excuses at the moment, so maybe we'll see more of Boston in 2009 (does that sound like a resolution? hope not because that will doom it.)We did stop at Harvard Square to eat lunch and visit the book-store (any bookstore is a favorite haunt of Brian's) and bought some cool cheap jewelry in another little shop. It was a perfect outing considering the diversity of our group - restless children, bored teenagers, and parents who are up for anything that's not too painful or expensive.
Saying good-bye to everyone yesterday was hard as good-byes usually are. Even our dogs are depressed that their "cousins" are gone since they got to join in on the 2x a day walks with Argos and Helios.
Grace never likes things to change. She is bummed that 2008 is over too. But, we did have to say good-bye to Christmas, good-bye to the Christmas tree as we threw it out yesterday for recycling, good-bye to our family, and good-bye to a year that was really, actually, pretty great to us in whole even if turmoil did swirl around us as so many things in the world were not well and so many of our family and friends suffered hardships. We have some fantastic memories though. I hope David will do our 2008 year-in-review slideshow soon.
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