happy new year!

Let's just say 2005 was a mix of highs and lows. Here's to 2006 being a better year!

I rang in the new year with friends at my house, and boy was it fun. JR cooked some *fantastic* BBQ — we had chicken, sausage, and shrimp skewers. While the BBQ was cooking, we had chips and "Ashley's Famous Dip®", fresh bruschetta, and donut holes. You laugh, but the donut holes were the perfect touch. When we finally sat down to eat, we had BBQ, potato salad, green beans, black eyed peas, and roasted corn. Yum!

Eventually, and after MUCH drinking, we broke out the Cranium. (And the eclairs and cream horns.) Some of us love this game, others hate it. Luckily for those that hate it, we discovered Cranium is not much of a drinking game; it was putting us to sleep.

So we switched to SPOONS. The explanation is pretty complicated, but once you start to play, it's simple. It's like musical chairs but with cards and spoons. It is action-packed! We were breaking spoons, falling off chairs... at least there wasn't any biting this time!

When midnight rolled around, we all went outside, where we popped a bunch of champagne bottles and toasted the new year. That's when the vigorous shaking and spraying of the champagne began. And a creepy misty fog rolled in. We went back in and played some more spoons. And played, and played, and played. I'm telling you - that game is fun!

Everybody rolled out about 3:30 I think. I'd fallen asleep on the couch, curled up with Winston by that time. When I woke up on New Year's Day, it looked like a bomb had gone off in my kitchen. After that was all cleaned up, we had just enough time to get ready before we had to be at Sandoval's New Year's Day party. But that's a whole other story...