Pcasso's Page: NEW YEARS EVE, PARTIES, REDBIRDS AND EVERY DAY IS SUNDAY!

I don't know about you, but when a holiday falls in the middle of the week, ever day after that always seems like Sunday to me.

We went over to Franklin and Beth's Christmas day, enjoyed coffee cake and a little visit, and then came home, put on our jammies and watched movies that we received for Christmas. It was nice and quiet at our house, quite a change from excited little boys and their new gifts. It was the perfect way to spend the rest of the day.

The next day was Friday, so we decided to go to a movie. I'm not a big Tom Cruise fan since he ventured into Scientology, but we went to see Valkyrie which is a 2008 historical thriller film set in Nazi Germany during World War II, depicting the July 20, 1944 plot of German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

If I understand it correctly, this film is based on fact and it is excellent. I'm also not a fan of war films but this one was very intense and extremely well acted with an excellent cast. I highly recommend it.

Sunday was church as usual and we had breakfast with the group afterward. We won't talk about the last Dallas Cowboy game as it was a total disaster. All I can say is that they better do better than that next year since they'll be in our new stadium.

I took it easy the first part of the week, reading a couple of books and enjoying the fireplace and the lights on the Christmas tree. One of the books was entitled "The Middle Place" and it was very good.

The Middle Place is about being a parent and a child at the same time. It is about the special double-vision you get when you are standing with one foot in each place. It is about the family you make and the family you came from and locating, navigating, and finally celebrating the place where they meet.

If you go to this link it's my favorite. Kelly Corrigan The next link has more details but the first one is what got me interested in the book after I had seen the video. http://www.kellycorrigan.com/themiddleplace/videos.php

you can hear her tell about the times and trials she has had. She's an excellent speaker and I highly recommend the book to all mothers and daughters and well as to the men so they can better understand their wives, mothers and daughters.

The other book I read was called The Christmas Sweater and it was given to me by a very dear friend. It's a great read any time but especially around Christmas.

Before I knew it, it was New Year's Eve (after all, we had had 3 Sundays this week ;-)

And speaking of our breakfast group, we started off New Year's Eve with a dinner party at one of the member's house. We have been going to breakfast with them after church for many years and we can all party with the best of them!

The men in this group have what they jokingly call the Friday Prayer Meeting and they go for lunch, fellowship and also a few beers on occasion. It's a great break for them to get away from the girls for a while. When we lived in Raton Frank belonged to to group that was called the "Friday Do Nothing Club" and this is a little more of the same Texas style.

Some of our former Gourmet group met at Pat Rico'ts lovely home for our annual New Year's Eve party.

There we so many people there that it was impossible to take photographs, so we just enjoyed the good friends and fellowship.
It got to be nearly 10:00 p.m. and we had one more stop to make to celebrate the coming of 2009 and the leaving of 2008. These people are also friends from church and Frank and Nasser are fishing buddies as well as friends. He and his wife, Jody, are wonderful hosts and we had a good time at their home as well.

One of the guests had brought a decanter which is called a Peron (not Eva ;-) and everyone tried to drink sparkling grape juice from it without drowning. That was pretty tricky and you could get soaked if you weren't careful, hence the towel!

As you can see, everyone was relaxed and having a great time.

The midnight hour was approaching and so we were all watching the television waiting for the Ball to drop at Times Square.

The men were starting to get tired of waiting, so they decided to pose as a group. Don't they look handsome!

When the midnight hour finally arrived, we drank champagne, ate blackeyed peas for good luck in 2009 ,

and the "boys" put on their coats since it had gotten very cold outside and they shot off fireworks to welcome in the New Year. Frank didn't have a coat and the one they loaned him wasn't quite as good a fit as his would have been!

We were home by 12:30 and were exhausted since we had started "partying" at 6:00 p.m. We had had a lovely time everywhere we went and were looking forward to a nice quite day on New Year's when we could sleep late and just be couch potatoes. WRONG!!
At 5:03 a.m. the alarm went off. We were dead to the world and didn't know if we were being robbed or what. It's very frightening, especially when you are asleep, to hear that alarm go off! The alarm company called us and said that the alarm indicated that there was a fire. Until they called, I told Frank NOT to go in the front part of the house without a gun in case someone was there. After they called we started looking for smoke and thought we smelled something burning. It's amazing how rampant your imagination can run when the suggestion has been placed there! To make a long story short, we got the alarm turned off, checked everything in as well as out, and there was no fire and no intruder. Needless to say, it was now not easy to go back to sleep! I finally did, but poor Papa stayed up.
There is a plus side to the New Years Day story. When we finally got up, we went into the kitchen for breakfast and were greeted by all kinds of birds on our yard.

As we looked more closely, we saw this beautiful red bird who was saying good morning to us on the first day of the new year.