The Mayer Family

Happy New Year! Tonight we decided to bundle up and head to the center of the city to bring in the New Year. In order to keep the kids awake and moving, we watched a movie together after dinner. Towards the end of the movie, Ellie said she wanted to go to bed (not something we hear often!) but when we mentioned that we were going to go see some fireworks, she immediately lit up and couldn’t wait to go (Ellie loves fireworks!). As we were putting on our layers of clothes around 11 pm, we were talking about how exiting it is that a new year will be here, and Evan piped up and said “But Mom, I’m still not tired of 2007!” Well, it’s here whether we’re ready or not!
Here we are, prepared to face the cold and join the crowd for the big fiesta

It is tradition here to eat one grape for every chime of the clock at midnight for “good luck” in the coming year. Here is a clip of that event. I’m eating my 12 grapes and recording at the same time, which doesn’t help the quality, but it’s still cute. Kevin dropped one of his grapes, so I guess that means one unlucky month this year for him...ha ha. I was multitasking and didn’t get mine eaten quite in time, so I’m not sure what that means for me. Thankfully we are not held by superstition and luck or lack thereof and can look forward to 2008 and the new things God is going to do.

Unfortunately, Ellie will probably be traumatized for life by the fireworks she was anticipating the whole time. Check out her reaction here:

As I write, it is almost 1:30 am, and the fireworks are still going off strong across the city.

On another note, we had our Byler Skype Christmas on Saturday. It was a new way to celebrate Christmas together for sure. We hooked things us so that we could see them on our TV screen and enjoyed talking and opening some gifts together. Of course it didn’t compare with being there in person and spending time together playing games and eating, but it will have to do for this year. Here was our view of them from our couch.

-Wendy