Ringing in the New Year!

 Our close friends, the Cienskis, invited us to spend the night with them on New Year's Eve so we could all ring in the New Year together. (They live in Columbia, so we would have had to leave right after dinner if we wanted to drive home and put Kaden to bed here.) We could not think of people we'd rather hang out with and gladly accepted their invite. It was a great, casual evening in. We watched college football, made homemade pizza and had good conversation while the boys played with toys and chased each other all over the house. I still love how well these little best friends for life get along!

Since we missed the opportunity to take a picture of the growing pair in their Christmas jammies the week prior, we made sure to snap this year's photo right before bed. They are too funny!

Kaden's first sleep-over would have gone off without a hitch if it weren't for an unexpected Southern tradition...

Right after Christmas, James and I were surprised to see a whole bunch of little fireworks stands pop up all over the place. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was one on almost every street corner, and in every large parking lot or shopping center. That's something we'd expect to see around the 4th of July, but couldn't imagine there was much of a market for sparklers and firecrackers in the middle of the winter. Apparently, it's a big thing around here to shoot off fireworks in your back yard on New Year's Eve... Coming from two states with very high fire danger, this was a total shock to James and myself. But with all of the rain we keep getting, I guess the local government is OK with it.

Now, I probably would have been annoyed if everyone shot them off around midnight... It would have likely woken us up and frightened the boys. But then we'd shrug it off as an understandable holiday celebration and settle back down. Unfortunately, we did not get off so easy. The fireworks in Caleb and Jordan's neighborhood started around 8 pm and did not stop till about 2 am. Literally, the loud booms and high pitched whistles of firecrackers exploding in the little park across the street was CONSTANT. For 6 hours straight. The boys were upset by them at first and had a hard time going to sleep initially. But then, amazingly, slept through most of the noise. The adults were not so lucky. It was a very, very long night. Memorable, but not enjoyable in the least. Hopefully next year we'll find a way to manage the noise and get some shut-eye. But - needless to say - we rang 2016 in with many BANGS and began the New Year with a strong need for a nap.