new year's eve fesitivities

usually, i celebrate the coming of a new year with a quiet night at home, often playing apples to apples and watching the ball drop. then everyone goes to bed. it's generally a good time, since we (the family) love being together.

but this year i had friends who actually stayed in utah for the christmas break. so i spent the last night of 2011 with good friends. and this is what we did.

first: every night of partying should start with a good meal. naturally, the troops chose cafe rio. while crammed around our cozy table, the eight of us shared memorable moments from 2011. mine? the lovely days of FORT. meredith's? that whirlwind trip we took to disneyland in april.

next: we got done with dinner a little earlier than we planned, but we decided to drive to our next destination anyway. we had heard the new year's eve dance at the university of utah institute was a pretty good time, and, even though we got there half an hour before everyone else and even though there weren't bounce houses as there (supposedly) were last year, it was fun. we had the dance floor almost to ourselves when the dance started, which allowed the boys to show of all of their best and craziest moves with no restrictions. and, i was in definite need of a good dance party.

then: though we lost jesse along the way, the final stage of the plan was to go back to our house and let off floating lanterns into the universe, but not before we wrote our hopes and dreams for the new year. before we prepared the lanterns, we counted down and watched the ball drop, then ran out into the street with pots and pans, making a ruckus that perhaps annoyed the neighbors. but it was a delightful way to ring in the new year.

finally: lanterns.this has been on my bucket list since i saw tangled.

it's a real thing, and i guess it's actually part of thai new year's tradition. look how cool it is!

it was a little cold and windy, and it took a little bit longer to light the lanterns than we were expecting, which made the release less dramatic than the above scene, but it was still magical. the lanterns i got were huge and looked so beautiful rising toward the dark sky.

 

a lot of the pictures didn't turn out so awesome, which just means that we have to do it again, maybe in the summer. and then we will know what to expect and have teams assigned to each lantern. but it was peaceful watching our wishes float off into the distance.

altogether, it was a great night, spent with some great people. here's to an amazing new year!