December 31, 2010

I'm a bit late on this post, but I know that come December 31, 2011 Scott and I are going to be sitting around the kitchen table wondering what we did last year (like we have done just about every year in recent memory) and it's nice to have the blog to go back to for a reference.  It's not that this year was anything special.  In fact, in most ways it was just like our past few New Year's Eves which means it was much like any other day/night of the year.  In some ways though, it was the strangest New Year's we've had yet. We started our day like any other day, went to the salon to get haircuts, played at home, took advantage of the warm weather and took down the outside Christmas lights, figured we might as well take down all the Christmas decorations since it didn't look the weather was going to allow for much activity outside of the house, cooked a typical meal, got the girls to bed at the usual time and spent a couple of hours reading on the couch before going to bed ourselves -- well before midnight. All typical day fare.  It's not that we don't like New Year's or think that the passing of one year and coming of another doesn't warrant celebration, we just never seem to plan for it and it kind of sneaks up on us after all of the Christmas celebrating. 

This year though, there were a couple of odd things of note.  First of all, the weather here in St. Louis was anything but expected.  The temperatures were in the 60's and severe storms passed through the area leaving us to spend part of the day sheltered in the basement while the tornado sirens went off.  Fortunately the storms passed just south of us (literally just miles from us) and we did not suffer any damage and did not lose power.  It was quiet sobering to be watching the news as all this was going on and seeing the amount of destruction that occurred from a tornado that touched down nearby.  We were pretty thankful for our quiet New Year's Eve day. 

Later that evening as the girls and I were reading books on the couch, we did have a little excitement though.  Scott opened the front door to check the mail and as he did a bird that had been nesting in our winter wreath flew into the house.  I'm not going to lie, I did NOT play it cool.  I let out more than one squeal and was QUITE unhelpful yelling "out bird, go out!" while Scott chased the bird around the main floor with a broom praying that it didn't go upstairs.  The girls however thought it was great and kept yelling "bird!  bird!"  Millie commented several times that she thought the bird wanted to live with us.  We tried to explain to her why that wasn't a good idea :).  Not really the type of excitement we were looking for.  The bird eventually found it's way out the front door and we were able to get back to our sleepy night.  The slightly unnerving part was that neither Scott nor I actually saw the bird fly out.  Scott saw it go down the hallway, but I was attending to Merrill in that moment and didn't see it.  But it wasn't any where else to be found (and still hasn't turned up) so we're pretty confident it found it's way home :). 

And that is how we ended 2010 -- peaceful and happy and loved with a few unexpected moments thrown in for good measure -- much the way we lived the year in its totality.  Here's to another peaceful year.