New Year's Eve

Ryan said he wanted to party on New Year's Eve (*oy vey, I hope that's not a sign of things to come!*).  So, we took him to a New Year's Eve celebration at the local bounce place in the afternoon.  He can now scale the big inflatable slide by himself and liked to race Daddy through the obstacle course and down the mega-slide!  Gavin thought the toddler inflatable was too baby-ish and wanted to do everything Ryan did.  Mommy and Daddy were whooped after an hour of hauling him up the various climbing walls and down the slides (which was doubly hard since he couldn't hold on on his own).  They also had a craft table set up where kids could make their own festive noise makers to help ring in the new year and offered fantasy face painting.  Not surprisingly, Ryan chose the Batman design, which was really neat until we realized nap time was coming up!

After convincing the boys to take a brief nap, we loaded up and drove to Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia for the Midnight at 7 New Year's Eve celebration to see the fireworks and walk through the Symphony of Lights display that we had driven through a week earlier.  Although they advertised that there would be food and entertainment available in a heated tent on the grounds, I think the turnout was far larger than they expected, because a lot of the vendors had run out of food.  So, after the celebration, we enjoyed drive-through Wendy's for our New Year's Eve dinner!   

Both boys really liked the fireworks, especially since Daddy found a place where we could enjoy an unobstructed view.  Ryan, in particular, was especially excited to walk through the display and see the lights up close.  He insisted on having his picture taken with nearly every light creation!  Although it was in the low 40s, it did start to get cold close to the end of our 1.5 mile walk through the lights (not counting the long trek back to our car!). 

Although Ryan looks like he's wearing combat makeup, it's really the remnants of the Batman face paint, which did not fare well through his nap! 

On the drive home, we shared our resolutions for the coming year.  I would like to do a better job of arriving on time for things, be more organized and efficient with my (limited) time, and update the blog more frequently.  Mike would like to spend more time at the beach this year and wants a new police car.  Ryan, in his own words, would like to do a better job of sharing with his little brother and would like to learn to kick the ball harder toward the goal in soccer.

2010 was an eventful year full of major milestones - Ryan became potty trained, Gavin turned 1, Mike completed his paramedic program and became a flight-medic-in-training, and I got to see Bon Jovi!  Let's hope our family is equally as blessed this coming year and that 2011 is a year full of love and laughter for all of us!