New Years Eve

 

I don't know how but bowling out at the base has become a New Years Eve tradition in the Nelson home. I think a while back my parents just thought it sounded fun and it kept being fun so we kept going. Bowling of 2013 was just as fun as any other year. At some point we all got a strike, Shara got a turkey, and Ethan and I got two in a row. We also all did terrible our first game but all broke 100 our second. It was just a really fun way to bring in the New Year.

If you look closely, you will notice that Kelsey is not really in any of the pictures. Where did she go you might ask? Well about 200 feet away to the right there was an arcade room and about 300 feet away to the left there was a play area. Kelsey was never to be found! We took turns making sure that she was safe, but for 90% of the activity, she was either playing on the horses, or at the arcade with Norah. At some point we remembered that we had crackers and so we were able to give them both a bag a crackers and that kept them occupied for about 7 minutes with the group. Once the crackers were gone, Kelsey realized what was going on with the bowling and made a dart down the lane. I caught her in time, but I was not popular.

When we got home it was time to party. Like most American families, we partied by setting up Hailey's science fair project. As far as science fair projects go, this one was pretty awesome. She died soda different colors and we had to taste the soda not knowing the flavor and then tell Hailey if the color influenced the taste. It was pretty cool.

Okay, so we didn't just do the science fair project. We ate delicious snacks, played lots of games, Ethan and Rich played more Nintendo, we tried to help my mom set up her Ipad, and my new favorite, Telestrations. 

My favorite part about these photos is that you can totally tell that Ethan is laughing and that Rich is ticked! This is very common when they play together.

We played Telestrations with Whitley and I have never laughed so hard in my life. She is in the second grade and did pretty well considering, but it was still hilarious when you were sitting next to her and go words like this:

Light

Or words like this:

Happy Man

Or pictures like this:

The best part of playing with Whitley was this comment "I didn't know what the words were, so I just drew mac and cheese!" It had nothing to do with anything, but she just decided to draw mac and cheese. We laughed so so so hard.

A unique part of our New Year's Eve growing up is that it was always Scott's birthday. This year he couldn't be with us, so we took a picture to send our love via digital post.

 Right before we put the girls to bed, we put them in matching jammies and let them read books together. I just never get sick of watching these two girls be together.

 It is getting harder and harder to stay awake to midnight, but we did it. We watched the ball drop, we watched our neighbor shoot off fireworks, then brushed our teeth and went to bed. It was a great New Years Eve.