A great start to a New Year!
(Some history, Pam and I talked about renting a cottage over the Christmas holiday. We got to talking and decided to simply save money and just PRETEND we were at a cottage and actually just have a sleepover at each other's houses, so we hosted The Dixons for the first 24 hour sleepover party!)
When the Dixons arrived, we joked about how long their drive had been to the cottage (they only live a block away) and how much stuff they had to bring for only 1 night! We had planned to start our cottage experience by skating on a nearby outdoor pond, but the +7 weather made it a little slushie and so we opted for a nice hike through some local woods. Pam was smart enough to bring bird food and the kids had enough patience to wait with the food on their hands and get some little chickadees to come a visit. If you look closely in the next few pictures you can see some of them. Jasmine was well liked and had about 6 little landings right on her hand, while Devin only had 2 (but he wasn't near as still as she was, Jasmine didn't even smile or look at the birds as they landed, she was too scared they would fly away). You will also see a deer in the background of one of the photos, there were 3 near the front of the woods. Next time we will bring carrots, too!
For supper we "went back to the cottage" to make crazy sandwiches. Everyone had a different favorite, but the kids liked Nutella with Smarties. I liked the one I had with smoked ham, Octoberfest mustard, avocado, red onion, bacon, hard-boiled egg and ripple chips - yum! Kevin and Pam were up for the challenge and by the end of the night Kevin ate a chocolate turtle wrapped in bacon - sweet and salty!
After supper, we had the kids New Years Bash. Jay tried to light all the sparklers at once, but as two of them caught fire, he couldn't get them separated from the pack and ended up dropping one on the carpet - yep, a little burn mark - oh well, more excuses to eventually get new flooring! We had glow bands and horns to blow, the kids danced around and sang songs, while the grown ups recuperated from the fun supper! We went around the room and all shared our goals for the New Year. (Jasmine's is to read short novels before bed, Devin's is to practice his lower case alphabet, mine is to eat more fish and oatmeal and Jay's is to jump higher). Well, that is some of them anyhow.
After the kids had gone to bed, the grown ups played Wii. We started with a murder mystery game, which we did well at (at least on the first two levels, we will see how much harder it gets), then we played a lie detector game, which was pretty funny - Jay had to say who had the loudest gas at our house - guess who it was? After that we Rock Banded our brains out and Pam and I tried harmonies on the new Rock Band 3, which was a little trickier, but very fun! We watched the Barenaked Ladies at Niagra Falls on TV and rang in the New Year, then watch the Air Farce New Year show and finally to bed after 1:00 - egad! Pam and Kevin didn't even have to go home, just headed to their bedroom in the basement.
The New Year brought another day of fun, a low key morning building Lego Star Wars Ships and King Cobras with Uncle Kevin. We had a pancake breakfast using my new insect pancake pan (makes cute little bug patterns in the pancakes). Then the men played board games and the ladies scrapbooked, while the kids played in the ...rain?, yes rain and watched movies, played dress up and on and on. The Dixons headed for home about 4:30 and had a loooong trip back on windy roads from "The cottage".
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