The New Year!

It's taken me a while to post about New Years Eve. I put all the pictures on face book before writing this, so most of you have already seen them.But first... I did have a birthday this year. I don't know why so many people like to keep track of birthdays every year. Right around my birthday I have finally forgotten my actual age and most of the time spend at least half the year thinking I'm younger than I am. Well, this year my mother in law unintentionally did the math and found out my little trick. So... of course my husband wouldn't let me live it down. He had to bake me a cake and everything. And keep reminding me of how OLD I really am. Now it's going to take a whole nother year to forget.


Me eating the giant doughnut shaped cake.

 

Well, back to New Years. We did our usual and went out to our good friend in Geneva Florida's house. He has some property and really knows how to throw the best party ever. He used to get crowds of people. A lot would camp for the night that way they didn't have to risk a long drive home after drinking. But this year for some reason it was really quiet. I think a lot of people just got old. But hey, I aged a whole extra year and I still showed up. Maybe some were worried about that Mayan prophecy coming true a little late. Or maybe they had that flu that was going around. I don't know but it made for a very relaxing night. If you count blowing up a Christmas tree with gasoline and lighting of a whole arsenal of fireworks relaxing.

We arrived pretty early so we were able to get some pictures of everything before it was all set up.

Fire pit before it was piled up with everything.

You can see all the wood that was piled up.

 



Some of the fireworks being made ready for the big show.

Next year I will have to take some pictures of the food because it was truly amazing. There was the pulled pork that our buddy makes every year. And then Red always makes chili which is yummy and our buddy also has his black eyed peas ready, so there is those, and last couple of years he has make really tasty hot German potato salad. 

fire

 



The fire started off with a bang. Each year the pit is carefully loaded with old dead Christmas trees and boxes that beer came in. Some times old bra's are thrown in the pit. I should say placed on the Christmas tree to make it look like a girl. I think next year they better put some boxer shorts in that fire. Then gasoline is poured over the whole thing and then lit on fire with a roman candle. It's quite a site and something everyone should experience. I don't know why everyone isn't doing this every year. Way more fun than getting all dressed up and trying not to turn into a pumpkin at midnight.
Then we sit around and catch up. Talk about what we did the year before and what we plan to do next year and have a good time by the fire and light fire works and have so much fun. Then at the stroke of mid night... BAM! firework display to be proud of. Photography lacks something to be desired. Ha.

fire works

I hope that 2013 is a great year for everyone! After all... we have a new start. We can have a new out look on things and we have an opportunity to do things different this year. We can be better. We can do better and we can make 2013 the best year yet!

 



Fourth of July 2012

I know I 'm a little late for the 4th of July post but.... everyone is celebrating the 4th up until this weekend anyway. We had planned on going down town to watch a professional display but the weather report said probable downpours maybe with hail so we decided to stay at home. But with no plans on that we had to run out and find some fire works. And we did.

  Early in the day we went to my Aunts house for some swimming and visiting with relatives.

We left just before the down pour, there was no hail. Thankfully the rain let up just before dark and we got ready to light up the sky.

V set up a Chinese lantern. I don't know how American that is but it was a flag lantern.

After bar-b-queing the ribs for dinner. Husband got the bonfire started with an old wooden crate. Everything was really wet, so let me tell you the boys got talent when it comes to fire.

Me and V set some tiki torches around to chase off mosquitoes and there was nothing left but to wait for the sun to set.

Hubie using his Florida coozy and watching the beautiful sun set.

Husband stuck with his beer but I wiped up a pretty good rum drink. That you can check out out the recipe part of the blog.

See what I mean talent!

We saw these great fireworks coming from our neighbors and decided to wonder over. Turns out they had purchases about $400 worth. And we had a great view right in our back yard.

Sparkler!

Ground firework with firework feature on the camera.

 We lit our own off too. And every time one went up the neighbor on the other side of us cheered. It was and impromptu block party. Even though most of the neighbors on the block were gone.

We all really enjoyed the night.

Lou's big New Years Eve party.

We arrived around 4:00. No tent to set up this year. Since we didn't have the kids with us we decided to sleep in the mini van. We removed the back seats and put in a blow up mattress. We were excited to meat Lou's new girl, Robin. She was very nice and ready to party, and even though she wasn't a very outdoorsy type I think she had a good time. Except for when this weird bug was attacking her.

Lou had the pit for the fire all dug before we showed up. It was around 8 to10 feet across. The bigger the better.

Shortly after we arrived we enjoyed some hors devours. Kim made brunshager or something like that. It's a dip made out of liverwurst. Chris really liked it. Bonnie and Charlie brought rum balls and mince meat pie. We had some chips. It was all good. The best thing was the 15lbs of smoked pulled pork that Lou cooked up for dinner. Kim also made his famous chili. And Lou had his black eye peas in the slow cooker. No one can ever wait for New Years day for them and they get sampled all night.

Soon the Christmas trees were dressed in women's underwear with beer box hats. Then with a big kaboom the fire is lit by dowsing the trees in gasoline and shooting them with roman candles.

Chris was king of the fire till he fell in. Which is a after school special about being intoxicated and making redneck hot air balloons in a fire big enough to cook a man as big as Chris in.

Don't worry. He pushed himself out right away and escaped with only a small burn in the palm of his hand. Which is a good experiment of the effects of adrenaline on intoxicated people. Everyone suddenly wasn't.

This is some of the fireworks that we had that night. They were amazing.

All in all we had a great time and survived into the year 2010. Although the next day we woke up in a van. One of my teachers way back in high school use to love to say. "Your going to end up in a van down by the river."

Happy New Year 2010!!!

Click here to see a video of the fire being started.

http://s372.photobucket.com/albums/oo165/maimom01/?action=view&current=NewYear09057.flv

Skadoosh

So... It turns out that in our city you are suppose to get a yard sale permit. Oops. So last blog post was all about an illegal yard sale and apparently yard sales are banned on Sundays. Which is why we had such a poor turn out on that day. Oh well. It was kind of fun and next time we will get that permit.

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day. We decided to stay home and have a fire in the back yard and we smoked a pork butt in our little smoker and had pulled pork sandwiches. MMM.... They were so good. Chris makes this dry rub with all these different spices and things then smokes it all day. But he wont tell anyone what it is in his rub that makes it so good. Later that night my Aunt came over and we sat around the fire and chit chatted for the rest of the night. It was a lot of fun.

Reese's was a little concerned about the fire.

Veronica's foot.

So last night we spent about five hours in the ER because, well mostly because I didn't want anyone saying I was a bad mom.

Veronica fell down the stairs at school the day before yesterday. She did the rest of the day at school and walked home. She looked fine, her foot hurt, but she was fine. I didn't see any reason to panic. But... when I got to work, a lady I work with's daughter also fell down the same stairs a couple of days ago. She rushed her to the hospital and they said something about a growth bone that if it gets injured the bones wont ever grow right so...

(when we got home) off to the hospital we went. Plus Veronica was complaining about the bottom of her foot, not her ankle so I thought well maybe... it was a broken bone. I've heard you can break a bone in your foot and you wont even know till years later when it gives you a problem.

As it turns out it was not a broken bone, or a sprain, she was just fine. Just a bruise on the bottom of her foot. Which is what I knew all along. So THththth...to all those people who thought I was a bad mom for not rushing her into a flu infested hospital full of germs and sickness. Thanks a lot.
Also is there really a bone that if you break it your bones wont grow right? My Aunt Patty said she heard it was in your wrist not your foot.

Never Forget 9/11/01