Am I the only one that can't believe it is already 2010? Allison always listens to Radio Disney and one of the teenage stars said "Like, I can't wait to be like, wow, 2000 was like so long ago...". I remember New Year's Eve 1999 like it was yesterday. I lived in North Georgia and was crying in that shady duplex b/c Y2K was going to end life as I knew it, luckily Aleks got there before I decided to lock myself in the bomb shelter.
Michigan was really fun, the snow was there and to us Floridians it was more than enough. Aleks' grandma and aunt were great hostess' to us and we even got to visit the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit (Deerborn, actually, but who is keeping track of city limits?) where the Kennedy limo and the Rosa Parks bus both reside.
New Year's was fine. We watched a few bowl games (I think) and played with some fireworks. Gabriel didn't come close to staying up for the ball drop so we just woke him up 5 minutes before. I think the 3 hour power nap helped, last year when he fell asleep 30 minutes before the ball and we woke him up he was crabby, this year he just came to the living room like he'd been awake the whole time.
*****After choosing pictures for this post (I chose too many, shoulda made a slide show...) I remembered a lesson we learned that needs to be shared with all you who have boys. We got all the kids' presents in Detroit rather than trying to check enough luggage to fly them up with us, but it made for a crazy 23rd and 24th because we didn't even get there until the 23rd at like 8:45. So, Aleks and I split up to grab stuff and I picked 2 cool looking Transformers for Gabe. Christmas morning he wants to open them and we couldn't even figure out how to turn it into a robot, and once we did it was a huge problem to put it back to the car. Aleks, Grandpa and I all tried with no luck, even after looking at the directions. Our 85 year old grandma says "What skill level are they?" Hmmm, there are different levels? That would have been good to know. "Uh, I don't know Grandma. Oh, (sheepish grin) they are level 3 out of 4." Yadda, yadda, yadda I finally got them back together before we left and dared anyone to open them back up. In the airport on the way home Gabe wanted to play with one so I showed him how to open it and made a joke to Aleks that it would never be a car again, but who cares as long as Gabe enjoyed playing with it and I went to cruise the terminal. When I got back 20 minutes later it was put together at Aleks' feet and I thought he figured it out. Nope, Gabriel did it. Unreal.
