Welcoming 2011!

Well, we were quite busy welcoming 2011. We went over to friends’ house for dinner. We had yummy turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and more. It was yummy! And also special because a lot of those ingredients cannot be purchased here so people were using their very limited stash! I hate that I can’t cook and contribute…so I just brought the drinks.

The kids were so brave and after a lot of coaxing (and bribing) we got both Orin and Micaiah to throw “poppers” AND hold sparklers!! If you’ve ever been around my kids when fireworks are going on you’ll know that is a huge step for them.
Of course, once they did it once and realized they weren’t going to be seriously injured they were all about it. So glad they finally had fun around fireworks. We set off two lanterns (apparently they are also a huge hit at New Years - I thought it was only Loy Krathong.)
We left around 9pm. Damien knew he was starting to get sick on Thursday so by Friday evening he was just ready to go home and to bed. I dropped him and Sora off and went to another party we were invited to. It was with a lot of people we hadn’t met so I was looking forward to meeting more people – a lot of them are not with SIL but have kids at CMIS where Orin will be going to school. Many of them also live in our new neighborhood so it was great to find out more about things around there (like food!).
The boys watched Veggie Tales with other kids and I got to just hang out. Later we all roasted marshmallows and shared our sparklers and stayed until 11:30. The boys were definitely getting tired at that point! We went back home to get Damien out of bed so we could bring in the New Year together.
We decided to go up to the roof. Wow, the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. There were just as many lanterns in the sky as Loy Krathong…but there were fireworks EVERYWHERE. We’re up on the 12th floor in a very central part of the city and you could turn an entire 360 degrees and see continuous fireworks.
I was asking Damien why this is so much more crazy than in the US (or at least in NOLA where we have always spent New Years), and he reminded me that the US would be the same way if Fireworks were both legal (which it is here) and very very very cheap (also how it is here). It was pretty loud and Micaiah was scared.
Right at about midnight Orin said he couldn’t hold his pee any longer. We sent him to the corner of the roof. Luckily I see kids relieving themselves in all sorts of places here so I don’t mind letting the boys doing it on occasion.
As we were about to leave the roof, we heard the loudest boom I’ve ever heard and then huge sparks everywhere. I large firework had landed on the roof about 20 feet away from us. Now that was SCARRY. There were lots of people all over the roof and it amazingly landed on the one area where no one was standing.
The boys stayed up another 30 or so minutes. They were TIRED today and we were definitely regretting letting them stay up so late. I’m thinking next year we may just put them to bed! I’m not sure it’s worth bad moods the entire next day!

It was a nice way to bring in the new year. We’re looking forward to this new year. 2010 was a very exciting and special but also a very tough year. We’re praying things are a little more low key this year!