We ended 2022 on a high note. After a wonderful Christmas week (it's been so nice to have everyone home), we celebrated New Year's Eve at home. I came down with a cold on the 30th, but fortunately was feeling well enough by Saturday night to celebrate. Brian and I got together some appetizers and we had an appetizer dinner with things like chilled shrimp, Nashville hot shrimp, sausage biscuit bites, chicken nuggets, mini quiches, some cheeses, etc. We played a few games and then around 11:00 brought out some chocolate fondue and ate that with a variety of fruits and some donut holes. Savannah (Ethan's girlfriend) also assisted with dessert by bringing us a box full of assorted Crumbl cookies.
We got some great games for Christmas and had fun playing Chameleon, and a cooperative game that Anders got called The Crew. A big hit has been a bidding game called Modern Art that Bradon got which can play up to 5 people. We also played an old favorite, Seven Wonders. We can't always get everyone interested in every game, but it's still fun to play with whoever we can muster.
Right before midnight we hurried and filled out glasses with Martinelli's sparkling cider and toasted in the new year a few minutes after midnight. We stayed up for about another hour finishing up a game before we headed up to bed. It was a great evening and I'm so happy we could all be together. That's the best kind of New Year's Eve in my opinion.
Sunday morning the 1st we woke up to loads of snow. This wasn't typical Utah powder either, it was heavy dense snow. It was snapping branches and we think we completely lost a small tree that we'd planted last year. Brian was out shoveling for almost 2 hours with very little help from the rest of the crew (I think mainly Bradon helped), though Ethan was first out with a shovel today. The roads were pretty bad and it was a good thing it was a holiday so there weren't many out on the roads.
We spent the afternoon inside preparing food and playing games and in the evening we headed to my parent's house for Sunday dinner. My mom did some salads and we had appetizers again. It was only us, my parents, and Matt, Clancey, and Dresden as Chris' family was sick and Jenny's family was just back from a family vacation to California. We had a good night and then shoveled my parents driveway before heading home.
We all have today off of work and school before regular life begins tomorrow when we go back to work and school, with the exception of Ethan who gets another week off before heading back up to the University of Utah.
