New Year's Eve

The original plan was that Mom Blood and Stephen's family would be driving back to WV before New Year's Eve. Mom had to be back at work on Monday and didn't want to drive home tired. Since Stephen's family wouldn't all fit in one car, they would both drive back together. Somehow that plan got changed and we ended up keeping Mom a day or two extra, and keeping Stephen's family until New Year's! I'm sure it was our warm, cozy home that changed their minds. 

I found a Peruvian restaurant in Aberdeen that I wanted to try. What better time than when we had a native Peruvian with us? Claudia went with me and told me all the things to buy (and then ended paying for it all because she's rotten). We got enough to feed everyone some delicious Peruvian food for lunch:

And it was SO delicious.

Minus the Inca Cola, which still just tastes like bubble gum.

Our ward also planned a New Year's Eve hike by the Susquehanna, so off we went!

I think our posse of Bloods doubled the attendees on said hike. 

The tweenage cousins looking stylish.

Some of us were zero percent interested in hiking and 100% interested in trying to fall into the water. Thankfully he was easily distracted with some selfies:

Notice my hand keeping him from jumping while I snap a picture?

Pausing during their 'hike.' 

There is no hiking here. Just walking through trees.

Stephen let me pick the New Year's Eve game.

I picked Acquire.

It was a super fun, lighthearted game.

Absolutely no one regretted choosing to play.

Especially not Claudia:

In case you're wondering, Jon was NOT playing.

Jon was going to bed.

Except he kept not going to bed because he was too invested in the game.

I let the kids (besides Elijah) choose if they wanted to stay up until midnight. Aaron made it until 10:30. Elise made it until 11:45. I tried to persuade her that she could make it another 15 minutes, but she was done. Catherine and Seth both made it until midnight. In fact, I don't even know what time Seth went to bed. He was trying to keep the same hours as Jacob and Joanna.

Watching the ball drop on Claudia's phone:

Happy 2022!

We had to say goodbye to Stephen's family the next day. We always start talking about moving to Arizona after spending time with them. We got to keep the twins a bit longer (and then an extra day because their flights were unexpectedly cancelled). I really, truly loved having everyone here for Christmas. The Bloods are an awesome family and I'm grateful I got to be adopted into it.