New Years Eve

Tina invited all of the cousins (and any of their friends) over for a teen NYE party at her house. They have been hosting an exchange student for the first half of this school year (from Spain), and they had another one arriving from Italy. They'll now have two teenage girls staying with them, which is likely quite different from raising two boys. She had a full menu of very fancy "mocktails" for the kids, a spread of appetizers, and a plan to play games and sing karaoke. I brought Ava and Tyler up there, and her friend Avery joined her as well. Quite a few of the cousins were there, plus some friends and girlfriends, and they seemed to be having a good time. Ava planned to spend the night, but Tyler and I left around 10 or so to head home.  This sort of thing isn't really his idea of a good time. He's happy to hang out with his cousins, but he'd probably say it was "too peopley" in that house. Tina is so good about hosting parties like this for the kids!

Dave, Tyler and I spent our NYE hanging out at home. The amount of fireworks shot off in our neighborhood was insane. It sounded like a war zone! We called it a night shortly after the calendar changed over to 2022, and as soon as the fireworks quieted down a bit. It's hard to believe it's 2022, but here we are! Let's hope its a great year for us all. May 2022 be a year filled with happy memories, good health, and some peace in this world. 

We have another driver!

Well, almost. Tyler got his learners permit today! As a parent, the thought of my child heading out on the roads on his own (we have a little time before that happens) is awfully scary. I know he'll be a careful and responsible driver, and will get great instruction from his dad. It'll be nice having another driver in the house, but it'll be awhile before I'm comfortable with the idea. Be careful kid! Don't do stupid sh*t.

Ava and her friend

Ava and I had a fun day out with her friend Avery and her mom. We went to lunch together, and then we were going to go ice skating, which the girls had planned for us. When we pulled up to the ice skating rink, the line to get in was out the door and down the side of the building. We pulled up a map of things to do in the area, and decided on a glow in the dark 3D mini golf place. It was fun! We took the 3D glasses off pretty quickly because it was pretty disorienting, but a very cool place. After that, we grabbed some Bahama Bucks shaved ices, and called it a day! Avery used to go to Ava's school, but left for a different junior high at the start of 7th grade. They still try to get together regularly, and spend a lot of time hanging out via video chat. It was a fun afternoon!

Christmas Day

Just as the rest of our festivities this year, things seemed a bit more like normal. We had Christmas with Dave's family, and while it wasn't the big group that's typically there, it was our immediate family plus a few cousins. After we ate, we did the gift exchange for the kids. There won't be too many more years that all these cousins are still living at home. After this school year, 4 out of the 9 of them will be done with high school. That's so crazy to think about. We don't get them all together very often anymore, so it's super fun when we do. 

Josh had Braden's name, and gave him a bag full of random stuff from his house--a mostly used candle, a half roll of toilet paper, you know, things teenage boys think are funny. He did hand him a gift card after the joke gift, and Braden got a pretty good laugh out of it. 

Gift cards are always a hit with teenagers, and an easy gift for those of us who have to do the shopping. 

With all of our kids being teenagers now (almost anyway), it's fun that there are some littles in the family. Dave's cousins, Marty and Mike both have children under the age of 5. The holidays are always exciting with little kids around! Here we have Theresa and her cousin Owen running around the backyard. 

Theresa has a little brother now too, Sullivan. We've only seen this little guy a couple times since he was a pandemic baby. He's a character! 

We're missing Hailey from the photo, but here are three of the girls, getting to be all grown up! Sydney will be graduating from high school in a few short months. 

Annual family picture in the backyard....it won't be long until I'm the shortest one in the family. 

After all the other holiday fun (food, gift exchange, dessert, white elephant gifts), we played some games. My mom gave us a game called "Mind the Gap," which is a good trivia game for multiple generations to play together. It was fun, but we definitely needed some more "boomers" to play to make it fair. After a round of that game, we played a few rounds of "Nouns," the game we learned at Karen's house last time we were there. It was a fun day celebrating Christmas with our family, and I'm grateful for this time together. Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas morning

Merry Christmas from the Horihan house! What did Santa bring these two this year? Ava got a makeup mirror and Tyler got a web cam. We all had very full stockings, which is always one of the kids favorite parts about Christmas morning. When you have a 2 foot long stocking, it really takes a lot to fill it up. 

Ava gave Tyler a roll of LED lights to put around his computer desk.

And he gave Ava a makeup/skin care set that she really wanted. Tyler has been doing a bunch of research over the last couple months trying to find his next camera. He's been using my Canon 5D for his video work for several years now, but it's not ideal for shooting video for several reasons. He's been talking non-stop about cameras for quite awhile, and finally settled on the one he wanted. He was hoping to get money for Christmas to use towards purchasing the camera, and maybe the lens he wanted for it. He was very excited when he opened up the lens from us! 

Ava had an Apple watch on the top of her list this year, and wouldn't you know it, that's what she got! 

Either this wine glass is really large, or my head is really small. I got this from Ashley, and yes, it's very large. It can supposedly hold an entire bottle of wine.

Not only did Ava get an Apple watch, she got a phone to go with it! Now, if you've been paying attention, you may remember that she also got a phone last year...and once again, it's my hand-me-down. Last year, I had gotten the new iPhone 12, so Ava got my 8+. This year, one of Dave's business partners was getting rid of his 12 pro max, so I took that and gave Ava my 12. This is one lucky girl!

Speaking of lucky kids, here is one lucky and very shocked kid! He got the camera he wanted! There were many reasons why we decided to go ahead and buy the camera for Tyler. We know this isn't just a fad or a passing hobby for him. He has been living and breathing film for years now, and there's no doubt in our mind that it will be part of his career in one way or another. He's filming at school almost daily for one thing or another in his video production class, and having a good, new camera is important. We're very excited to see what he does with it! 

I recognize that these are pretty over-the-top gifts this year, but we are grateful to be in a position where we can do that. Our kids are appreciative and understand how fortunate they are. It was a fun morning together, and we're looking forward to a great day with family!

Christmas Eve

It rained pretty much all day today, making for a very wet Christmas. We definitely wouldn't be eating outside this year, like we did in 2020! You'll see that Dave has a bit of a project started here. He is planning to take out the orange tree, extend the bricks from the planter over to the wall and flatten this area out. We'll run power, put down pavers, and eventually put in a hot tub in this space. It'll also be an area for the bbq and the smoker. So, this is the last year we'll have oranges from our backyard tree. 

 

We are back to our tradition of chicken tacos with my family and Karen's family. We didn't have them over last year because, well, 2020. It was just us and my parents last year, in masks eating outside. I'm so glad we are able to get back to a more normal holiday gathering this year. 

The kids got to open up their gifts from Grandma and Grandpa tonight because they're not going to come over in the morning like they have done previous years. With the kids being older and not getting a ton of gifts, we didn't need to make a big deal about Christmas morning. We'll just keep it simple with our family. Here is Tyler opening a mat he got to stand on when he plays VR, and Ava is opening a giant wad of cash (which her brother got too--thanks Grandpa!). 

This was the Christmas for pots and pans. A few weeks ago, I had sent a link to a set of pots and pans to Dave, and then sent it separately to both of my parents as a gift idea for me. I guess I should have communicated better, because I ended up getting sets from both of my parents! My dad got me the set I shared the link to, and Dave helped my mom pick out another set that he thought would be good too. In addition to those two sets, Dave also got me a large frying pan that went with the set my mom got. So, the moral of that story is to only share a gift idea with one person, otherwise you might get it twice. I decided to keep the Caraway set my dad got me, and I love it! 

It's hard to believe it's been two years since Tyler got his VR for Christmas. Sometimes kids get gifts for Christmas that are forgotten about after a few months. That is definitely not the case for Tyler and his VR. It really did open up a new world, new hobbies, skills and friendships. We never would have realized when we got that first VR that it would lead to an actual job for him! Karen and Dawson gave it a try while they were over, and both seemed to enjoy it--Karen especially!

Here's our traditional family photo with the Christmas Eve crew, and the face you don't recognize is Karen's friend Scotty. 

I'm very grateful to have this tradition with my family, and am so glad we were able to make it happen again this year. It's so nice to feel like things are getting back to normal again after these last two crazy years. It's crazy to look back on our Christmas Eve's over the years and see how much the kids have grown. For comparison, here is a post of photos from what I think is the first Christmas Eve with my family--2012. 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!