Life at the condo: Saying Goodbye to 2005

The Gilroys traveled vast distances to celebrate New Year's Eve with the Dormers in Seattle. Yes, Darren and I dropped Beauty the wonder dog at her grandpa's house for the weekend, fed and watered the cats, jumped into Sophie, and headed north. Approximately three hours later we were ushered into the newly remodeled Dormer residence where we were immediately offered drinks - woohoo! It was, after all, New Year's Eve. The drinking was followed by the eating, which we didn't stop doing until we left their house. It was essential to feast as much as possible before 2006 (our consuming bad food deadline). We were quite successful in this endeavor, thanks to the cream puffs, borscht soup, cheese blintzes, mashed potatoes, bacon, etc. provided by our lovely hosts. (We are now back on the trying-to-eat-healthy-and-exercise-regularly kick. )

Shortly before midnight, we hopped in the car - Richard hadn't been drinking...much - and headed to this park (I can't remember the name) where hundreds (?) of people gathered to watch the fireworks being shot off the Seattle Space Needle. Thankfully we could see the fireworks this year. It's a hit-and-miss tradition. Sometimes it is too foggy, sometimes there are too many people, sometimes... But this year was perfect and we arrived at the park just in time to see the fireworks display and then were back home toasting with champagne, eating and watching the most random movie I have ever seen entitled Tampopo.

This crazy movie is described on the Internet Movie Database web site as follows: "Tampopo, a widowed noodle chef, is helped to become a first class chef by truck driver Goro and friends. Food is the theme throughout this movie and it includes novel uses of food as erotic toy." It should be noted that truck driver Goro is the cowboy type. There is an egg yolk scene that is too disturbing to relay here. I'm not sure when it became a good idea to watch strange Japanese flicks but I can say this is not the first one we've viewed with the Dormers. That being said Rick and Anya also introduced us to Creature Comforts. Claymation is on a comeback, I can feel it. With more food and drinks, we finished the evening with a game of Ticket to Ride, replacing the traditional Risk game of yesteryear. Having already played the game, Rick and Anya were privy to strategery (thank you, Mr. President) that Darren and I were not. But we caught on quickly. If memory serves, by the end of the weekend Anya was in first place, Darren in second, me in third, and Rick was left bringing up the rear.

Of course, after an evening of drinking and staying up late it makes the most sense to get up and head to the mountain for vigorous exercise. That's right. We went snowshoeing! It was totally awesome! Okay, it is probably true we didn't snowshoe the proper way - there was a lot of sliding going on - but there were boards strapped to our shoes and we were on snow. Darren and I are now thinking we'll have to spend our REI dividend on snowshoes of our own. If the faces of the dogs on the trail are any indication, we're confident Beauty the wonder dog would love to join us in the snow. We started to head up because, well, you're at a mountain, where the hell else are you going to go? And when we hit a dead end, the butt-sledding began. The day was littered with snowball fights and random jumps into snowbanks, and ended with the construction of snowmen. Thanks to Rick for sending over the photos of the day, a few of which I am including below. To sum up, we have said our goodbyes to 2005 and welcomed in the new year. Here's hoping 2006 is the best year yet. :)

The pic is foggy because the camera was hit with a snowball.