Setting off confetti bombs on new year’s eve

We spent the week between Christmas and New Year in Iowa, as we have done every year for the past 15 years (except last year because of covid). The kids looked forward to spending time with cousins as they hadn’t seen them since the summer.

The kids all played this game a lot, keeping the ball in the air

There were a lot of games, cards, football watching and just hanging out. Lily is 16 now and has a full drivers license, so for the first time, she drove Jude and Anna to the movies where they saw the new Spiderman movie. I was asleep before they get home.

Jude enjoyed chowing on the leg of ham, caveman style

It was a cold week, so there was not a lot of outside time. I took Jude out to play soccer once but we spent most of the week indoors. Anna decided that she wanted to spend the week staying at the Dahlens house so she left us every night.

We watched quite a bit of college football, particularly on New Year’s Eve and New Years Day. And every evening we would join Jude’s grandpa and watch one of his British detective shows. Yesterday, we also played a family game of bingo with all 11 of us with prizes for the winners.

Kids champagne toasts for New Year’s

On New Year’s Eve we started with confetti party poppers, then a countdown with kids champagne, and finally a balloon drop. This was all over before 7:30 pm because the twins don’t like to stay up (and really, neither do any of the grown-ups). Jude and Anna both wanted to make it to midnight but since Anna was staying down at the Dahlens she stayed up by herself watching YouTube. Jude and I watched the ball drop in New York and then part of a James Bond movie. We saw the clock hit midnight, wished Anna a Happy New Year and then went to bed.

It was all over too quickly and today we made the big drive back and were home right at 6pm.