O hai, 2009

Twenty-aught-nine is upon us. Last night was the turning of the new year and it came with a bang. I'm down in Tampa with my wife's whole side of the family and we're having a blast. A few of dad's cousins live down here and they threw one helluva New Years Eve party. I dragged all but her parents to the party and we certainly made an impression. Highlights include...

* Seeing Aunt Emma was a real treat. She looked great too. It was nice talking with her. And yes, she's my newest little nieces' namesake (don't know if I used that right but it rolls off the tongue so well I'm not going to change it... you know what I mean).

* Watching the heads crank and hearing jaws drop as each of my 4 nieces (aged 17 to 21) came walking through the crowd as they walked into the party. My sister-in-law was worried that we should have brought something to the party. Well, my friend, we brought the cute dancing girls.

* Speaking of my sister-in-law, I'm pretty sure she had a good time. To her credit, she only had a small salad and a dozen oysters to help soak up the fun. But when I tried to help her up to her feet she kept going forward and took me with her - and took out poor Jooj. The three of us went down with a thud. The party kept on rolling as we did our best to wipe the egg from our face. But I kept saying that her falling down only was a sign that it was a great party.

* Overall, I'd say that it was a wonderful fusion of two sides of my family. Seeing everyone having such a great time was such a joy. I truly could have just sat in the corner all night and watched the fun. I'm so lucky to have such a good family on one side, let alone *both*!

* Tammy's reaction to the painting of Callie and Clayton that I did is pretty much the reason I paint pieces for other people. It just makes me so proud to get reactions like that and to make people so happy :D

I don't have any resolutions for the year yet. Give me a few days and I'll come up with a few. I need to review my resolutions from last year and see how I did. I know that I fell short on reading 8 books. I had trouble getting back into exercising every day after my hospital stay. And I'm seriously curious to see if I made my resolution to paint 26 pieces in 2008. I think I may have.