Michael and I decided our New Year's celebration needed a bit of jazzing up. We began by making plans for a time capsule. I was reminded of the following idea from Debbie. We finally pulled it off.
Nothing fancy as I waited until 31 Dec to make these. With simplicity being my model, I drew a clock on the face of little brown bags. Beginning at 4:00 p.m. a bag was opened each hour on the hour. Our hope was this would give a bit more focus to the wait for the New Year and help some of us (Arielle and I) succeed in waiting up.
Four O' Clock and we learned we'd have our
family gift exchange. We allowed two hours for this. We didn't really need two hours, but the Hobbit went longer than expected and
we I was happy to have two hours scheduled so we didn't get behind. ::snort::
Six O' Clock's bag had Andes mints and instructions to go make dinner. I'd made the
pizza crusts earlier in the day. I'd made 16 crusts and was able to put a few in the freezer for lunches.
This may be the new way we handle Friday Pizza/Movie nights. We ALL had pizza at the same time...quite a treat.
Seven O' Clock's bag encouraged us to bring our time capsule items to the living room. I was proud of the thought that went into this as the kids only knew about it for a day. We've already bought 2013's capsule and everyone can put things into it throughout the year.
We went around and shared about our items.
Stacia's tea party and friends
AWANA
Zander got his first Military Dependent ID
AWANA
Baptism
True Love Waits
Baptism
Friends - True Love Waits
Surgery 1
Surgery 2
Please note I put a LOT in but some of them were "family memories".....
Sayonara doll signed by local leadership team and local PWOC gals
Magnet bought while in VA with Susane for Vision Summit
Asia Region PWOC Coin - Asia Region was dissolved - PWOC Japan born
Shipwreck Beach - floats and sea glass
We also talked about Dad G going to heaven, about legacy, and about things I won't share here. We concluded by praying and praising God for His amazing faithfulness in 2012.
Nolan prepares another time capsule item...
Symbolizing my Japanese Driving Adventures ::snort::
The kids decorated the capsule.
In future years we'll fill one and open a previous year....
Eight O'Clock and the kids were happy to find a couple of new things to explore.
Nine O'Clock's brown bag contained Wizard (a game much like Rook we discovered).
We opted to continue learning to play Flash Point Fire Rescue rather than another new game. We continued to play this throughout the night and finished the game around 11:30 p.m. This game was more complicated than I expected but is great fun. You work as a team to rescue people and put out the fire.
Arielle began struggling to stay awake....but I knew the activity behind door number TEN would wake everyone up.
NERF DARTS.....
And SHE had the big one....
Yuuki went to the door and wanted OUT.
I went and cut my bangs about now....they raged upstairs, downstairs, in closets, behind doors....here they have Michael cornered in the boys room.
Stacia cracked us up! She became an Arms Dealer...she ran around the house collecting darts and delivering them to whoever needed them.
A motley crew - but all fully awake at 11:00 p.m.
Our plan had been a variety of fireworks at 11:00 p.m. but it was COLD and WINDY...Michael set this one off.....
And demonstrated an experiment with fire, balloons and a bit of water....
The brown bag opened at 11:45 p.m. contained party supplies for the last few minutes of the countdown. I will plan ahead better in the future so we can make our own hats, have poppers etc....
This "bomb" from the 100 yen store was good for confetti
Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu! Happy New Year!
Choosing Joy!
©2012 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...
