Ringing in the New Year with an elephant nose and googly eyes

This year ended in quite the whirl-wind.  We got our LONG awaited homestudy approval and then, just a short time later got our 1800A approval (which I had filed before our homestudy was approved so the immigration approval process could get started).  We got the approved homestudy from our case worker and then made copies of it and the rest of our dossier in quadruplicate (more than 350 copies in all) and got the dossier sent off just in time to wrap presents and run around to various Christmases.  Whew!

Then we got sick.  Alyssa got the flu and Andrew and I got the nastiest cold/fever thing known to man.  Since Andrew is still suffering with sciatic pain...I haven't mentioned that before, have I?  Ok, briefly, he herniated his L5-S1 (we don't know how) on November 13th and was in excrutiating pain for a several days (like he couldn't bear to do anything but lie on his back) and then horrible pain for nearly a month (couldn't stand still for more than a couple minutes at a time).  Finally on December 14th, he got some relief in the form of an epidural shot.  It helped the back pain a TON, but he still has terrible, sleep-depriving foot and ankle pain.

Anywho...being sick is never fun, but especially not when you could be having fun with friends.



 However, I refused to have an awful, boring, sitting around coughing at each other, kind of New Year's Eve.  I just needed some inspiration.

Enter this game.  Some dear friends gave it to us for Christmas.  And I have to think it was divine inspiration (ok, I'm using that term a little loosely here), but it was a desperately needed family activity that did not include kleenex and Vicks.

 Why was it great?
 

We acted like movie stars, clicked our heels, jumped up and down and asked each 

other if somebody was lost.

  Andrew and I realized we don't remember nearly as many silly jokes as our kids do.  So, our poor kids had to shake their heads at our attempts to make some up.

We hoola danced, snorted like pigs, sniffed ourselves and pretended we were 

ballerinas dancing over hot coals.

 

 We squeaked like mice, meowed like cats and pretended we were playing hide-n-seek.

In short......We laughed, we cried, we wore an elephant nose and googly eyes.

Happy New Year!!!!