Our holiday season was kicked off by celebrating the 35th anniversary of my birth. : ) Dennis invited the family over and whipped up a couple of the best batches of chili any of us have ever tasted - at least I think I can say that for Zach. I had to restrain myself from eating too much because later that night I went out to a club downtown that was having "80's night" to do a little dancing. I was feeling a little old, as one of the few patrons who had fully experienced the 80's first hand - out of a diaper, but we had a blast and proceeded to shut the place down. The experience made me really miss my sister, though. She was a phenomenal dancer and had great taste in music. She introduced me to a bunch of "cool" 80's bands that I still love - New Order, Depeche Mode, The Cure, The Ramones (or were they strictly 70's?). Anyway, I was lucky to have had such a hip sister.
Christmas was a whirlwind. We drove out to Cozad on the 22nd and awoke the next morning to a land covered in ice. It was amazingly beautiful, but soon learned that the ice had cut power to many of the area households. This meant that I would see my brother David for about an hour during the 2.5 days we were home. There would be none of the traditional viewing of "It's a Wonderful Life" together. There were too many families without their Christmas lights on. And poor Anna, David's wife, spent the holiday without her husband. The ice also played havoc for my best friend, Anita. She and her family traveled back to Cozad from KC only to discover that her folk's place was without power. This was a treat for us because they got to spend all that Saturday with us, but I'm sure it was a huge bummer for her. Not an ideal homecoming to spend it at someone else's home.
During our very brief visit to Cozad we managed to get together with some old friends from high school who were home for the holidays. We met up at Michele McNally's home for a quick reunion with Misty (Dishman's), Anita (Menke), Michele and I's families. It was pretty cool to see all of our kids playing in the basement where I spent a majority of my free time durning high school!
We left Cozad on Christmas Eve morning and headed to Dennis' folk's place where we had a yummy Christmas dinner waiting for us. Eastern Nebraska was like another country compared to Cozad. There was no snow or ice to be seen and the temp was in the 50's. After o
pening gifts we went for a long walk. We ended the evening by watching the classic "A Christmas Story". On Christmas day we headed to Great Grandma Brewer's place for lunch. Great grandma and Addie read stories and had a tea party. We celebrated Christmas with Dennis' extended family on the 30th. There were the usual goofy $20 gifts exchanged between the guys - Justin gave Wes's $20 in a diaper filled with raisins. Dennis' $20 was wrapped in a pink Victoria's Secret box, but the most photogenic was the item accompanying Dennis $20, which Zach opened. His $20 came with 4 sets of "funny teeth". I think this should be Zach and Stacy's Christmas card photo for next year.
New Year's Eve was going to be celebrated with friends at our house, but ole man winter had different plans when we woke up to a full-blown snow storm. So we rug in 2007 with a fairly lame DVD and some decent Champaign by the fire. Not too shabby.
We took a moment to reflect on the most significant events of 2006. We agreed that the most significant was watching the amazing transformation of Addie from a baby that was just learning to sit up to a toddler who is running and talking. Where did our baby go? We agreed that it's gone by way too fast, but it's been a good year. Here's to a happy and peaceful 2007!
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