Quick Updates from New Year's, etc.

I last left off with Christmas Day and the day after. On New Year's Eve we met up with Layne, Rich and kids at IHOP to celebrate Turner's 9th birthday. That's where he wanted to go and that was fine with us, because we recieve coupons in the mail that day...plus pancakes is something that Anders will eat. We had a lively dinner to say the least, but Charl enjoyed his chicken fajita omelette and enjoyed my crispy chicken salad. After dinner we went to Layne's house and put a movie on for the kids and we played Settler's of Catan. I usually do poorly at this game and Charl gets really excited to play this game. Two hours later and kids cruisin all around us...(I guess they weren't too interested in the movie) the game ended, and I WON! It was a close game, but right at the end the cards fell in my favor. We left for home around 11 pm and the kids fell asleep in the car. We put them to bed and we had 15 min. to spare for the New Year.

Then we had a relaxing morning. I did some house cleaning and then prepared the pizza sauce for our afternoon New Year's Day party. The Pews, Keith & Amber, and Granny & Teresa came over to watch football, play games, and EAT! The pizza turned out well...I'll definitely make it again. We had tons of snacks and Keith brought his PS2 (Playstation) so we ended the evening playing guitar hero. It was our first time playing it and Charl and I weren't too bad, though we only played the easy mode.

On Jan. 3, we went to Cheesecake Factory for a late lunch to celebrate Teresa's 40th birthday. (We left Anders at the Pews and we took Holly with us. She was a jewel in the restaurant...we knew Anders would NOT be a jewel, so that's why we left him with the Pew kids.) We got seated at the large round table in the back room, since we had 10 people. It was a good time. Afterward, we picked up Anders and took Rachelle and Gwen with us back to Granny's house to hang out while Tim and the rest of the gang went to BYU vs. Wake Forest. Wake is ranked #6 and won, but it was a close game. We had ice cream when they came back and Teresa opened some presents. It was fun day with family.