New Year's 2019

Ashlee and Russ asked us on Friday night if we were up for visitors from Sunday to Thursday.  We'd resigned ourselves to staying home to give Shelby and Brennon time to claw their way out of the hole of homework made from the Flu, so it was nice to have family willing to come when we couldn't go anywhere.  Shelby was mainly the one that needed the most time, so she buckled down and worked extra hard for two days straight (and I mean two full days of nothing but studying and eating) to get to a place where she knew she could spend all the time with them when they arrived.

We didn't have definite plans for New Year's Eve, other than I wanted to invite someone that had a daughter Aria's age.  Since Caden's passing, she's suffered every time we get together because there isn't someone that really includes her in their games.  Caden was there for her every second, every game, every snuggle, so I wanted to give her the chance to meet a friend of her own.  All other kids have someone (Keilie was going to a dance, otherwise she also feels it deeply with Caden being gone with being so much older, alone, than everyone else), so I thought of a family that we knew that had a daughter in Kindergarten.  I found the perfect one: The Gibbs.  From the moment they walked in the door and the girls were introduced, we rarely saw them again.

We had a bunch of finger food type snackies, and just played games from 6:00pm to 9:00pm when we rang in the New Year with New York, banging pots and pans (enough to break wooden spoons!) and screaming.  It was a blast.  As soon as we did that, I drove Keilie and Ellie to the dance while everyone got their littles into bed.  Randy, Ashlee, Russ, and I rang in the New Year for real in a much quieter fashion as we waited for Keilie to get home.

The next day we had plans to take the kids to Chuck-E-Cheeses with the money our parents gave us for Christmas.  Not only would they have a blast, at Chuck-E-Cheeses, but they would have a blast with cousins!  Love that kind of gift!  However, I woke at 8:00am with a stomach ache that had me nearly passing out from the pain.  I'm not even a little embarrassed to say that I needed to lie my face down on the cold tile in front of the toilet to keep from passing out-- it was bad.  I thought it would be a one-and-done occurrence, but it ended up coming every few minutes until about 11:00am, at which time I truly did pass out in exhaustion and take a three-hour nap.  It was brutal.  So my view of the fun was this...

I'm so sad that I missed all of the fun of the gift from Grandpa and Grandma Burrell!

On their last night here, we decided to get out of the wicked wind (you'd think it would be heavenly having 52 degree weather in January, until you factor in the Casper Wind that chills you to the very bone!) and have some fun in the church gym.

 It started out as Badminton, because, you know, wind, but quickly turned into basketball...

 All was going great, until Shelby jammed her thumb while attempting to catch the ball.  One more having a blast in the Nursery.  *It was funny to see Ashlee react adversely to someone playing the drums, when I've been tuning it out and talking over it for three years and didn't even notice when it was banged* 

 After a small break and thumb ministrations, it was then time for some Ultimate Football.  Ashlee and I left the little kids to watch the fun.

I think we all could have stayed for another few hours, but Brennon's asthma became bad enough that it actually scared him and the Wilsterman girls.  I hate the fear I see in his eyes as he's gasping and trying to fill lungs that kind of suck at being lungs.  It affected them the rest of the night.  We've decided that it will be a tradition to play in the gym if it is too cold (or in this case, windy) to play at the park, and that we'll always play a game of Ultimate Football.

It was a great way to ring in this New Year!  We are always sad to see family go home, and always look forward to the next time we'll be together.  I can't wait to see both sides of our Utah family in a few weeks as we celebrate Jackie and Darwin's 50th wedding anniversary!