It’s a recovery day.  There is such a thing as too much fun.
Especially when you have a three hour drive back home at eleven.
But it was so worth it.

Visited with grandmas.
Watched the Cowboys (wretched) game with aunts and uncles, something I really missed doing.
Drove out to cousins’ in “hick-ville”, as they call it, for New Year’s Eve festivities.
My aunt and uncle are such wonderful hosts…we always feel relaxed there.
Lots of food and good conversation.
Shot off our firecrackers a little early so the younger ones would be able to see them.
Some really big ones always make it fun.
Or the noisy kind that have about twenty-five that come whistling and shrieking out of a box.
Those are the most fun when you light about three of them sitting next to each other,
and one of them falls over and aims at half your group.
Screaming laughter and mass scrambling are always a hit.
The dry ice bomb was also a hit. 
And the two sheriff’s cars that drove by just after we’d cleaned up our mess added to the general thrill.
We girls played “Apples to Apples”, with occasional input or advice from the boys.
And a few of our players tried to also keep up an IM conversation with the cousin stationed in Japan.
Later went out to watch the neighbors set off their fireworks at
midnight, and a couple of the girls got on the roof for a better view.
Then our dads wanted to watch “Independence Day.”  An oddly fitting end to our year.

Some of us older cousins drove out to see our grandpa at the veteran’s home in Temple.
Played “Apples to Apples” again in the car.  Even Dad played while he drove.
Took Grandpa to Wendy’s and enjoyed his comments about people and places.
When Steph said she always wondered what the little girl with the red braids had really looked like
(wasn’t she Dave Thomas’ granddaughter or something?), Grandpas said, “I think that’s a little devil.”
Well…her braids do kind of stick up.

It was hard to leave him, especially for Daddy.  Someday soon one of our families will have a house
with enough room for him.  That’s what we’re all working towards.

More good food and fun back out at cousins’.  The children had built a bonfire out on the back of the property,
and one of our cousins took some old, yucky bottles of non-dairy creamer to show them “magic with fire.” 
It makes a pretty good whoosh-ing flame that follows the powder up into the can.
It’s especially thrilling if he does it off of a stick that you’ve got a flame on.

Monster’s Inc. for the parents and the children.
Computer games and conversation for us older kids.
We taught Kat how to make reading out loud more fun by simply randomly flipping through a nice long book and
reading the first line of every page.  Or if you’re really skilled, you can simply read whatever jumps off the page.
Laughing seems to be our favorite thing to do with our cousins.