New Year's Eve 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Joacim, Izzy and I hosted a gathering at our house this year.  We ended up having 15 people come over for an evening of food, friends and fun.

Unfortunately, our newest friends from Greece weren't able to be with us that evening, but they dropped off a beautiful cake with a lovely tradition.  Baked inside of the cake was a coin.  Tradition says that whoever gets the coin is going to have the most luck in the new year.  The host gets the first piece, and then it goes by age from youngest to oldest (which, after midnight, wasn't the easiest thing to figure out ;)

I made 3 salads, plus a tray of veggies and dip, so my prep part was pretty easy.  This is an orzo, asparagus and tomato salad with lemony dressing and feta.

Joacim promised Daniel, our kiwi friend, that he would get grilled meat for New Year's, and boy did he ever.  We marinated 10 filets, as well as got some of the hand-crafted sausages from Mackenthun's, for our grilling.   Too bad Mother Nature wasn't more cooperative, because it was near zero after the sun went down, which my trooper of a husband powered through and cooked a delicious meal :)

It's great to have a home and table big enough to fit everyone around it.  THIS is what it's all about.

Our friends Sebastian and Lindsey brought some friends along with then that were spending the holiday with them, which was a great addition to the group.  The brought cherries soaked in moonshine....yes, moonshine.

And here's Caroline being brave enough to try it

Sadly, this is the only photo with me in it from the entire evening.  Let's hope I can make Joacim commit to a resolution of taking more photos of me!

Lyndsey and Sebastian brought this little delight.  I'm in love....

We played a little Just Dance 4  for awhile.  Here's Caroline and her brother competing.  He was such a trooper for trying it out!

Another photobomb by Daniel (he's remarkable good at that :)  Izzy was WIDE awake, which was great, and due to the fact that she'd taken a 4-hour nap earlier in the day.  Score one for good parenting!!!

Close to midnight, Izzy started helping me put the plastic champagne flutes together.

I had told Joacim to put the champagne outside in order to cool off.  BIG mistake.  HUGE.  The champagne was frozen.  We didn't realize it until about 10 minutes before midnight, which gave us JUST enough time to get it thawed enough to pour.

Not the greatest photo since I had a glass of champagne in one hand and a ginormous camera in the other, but a toast to all!!!

We cut the cake after midnight, and Seth was the lucky one who got the coin in his piece.  Too bad he left it here for Izzy to steal :)

Two of my good friends, Katie and Caroline

The ladies decided to do a shot, which was great since we had a bartender in the house.  Sadly, I had to sit this one out.

This was probably the most fun part of the evening for me.  When Seth gets tired, he's out immediately.  I watched his head roll around 360 degrees, trying to settle on a comfy place, which was hilarious.  I don't know if you can see, but Izzy is STILL awake at this point.

Everyone started leaving around 1:30am.  Seth and Kristin called a cab, but they never showed up, so I drove them home since I hadn't been drinking. Do you see that the temperature here shows -8 degrees?????  Holy.  Crap.

It was a great evening having all of our friends with us!  What a great way to bring in 2013!!!