Happy New Year...Shafferland Style!

Happppppppppy New Year!!!! Welcome to 2019...and I would just like the record to show I haven't yet messed up my date-writing. I'm sure today will be the day. (How long does it take you to remember to write the new year?)

We had a really wonderful New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, so I thought I'd tell you about it! We rang in the new year with our Sunday School class. I signed up to take cookies and then completely stressed out about what to take. I made a batch of healthy chocolate chip cookies (which needs some fine tuning) for those who were already on the diet-watching bandwagon. Then I found a recipe for Chinese Almond Cookies (yes, I'm aware it was not the Chinese New Year) and made those too! I think Ryan wanted to eat the whole plate of almond cookies by himself. He declared them to be a perfect coffee companion.

Everyone at the party pitched in, and the food was delicious. We played some games after we ate, and in true Shaffer fashion, we didn't actually win a GAME, but I documented it when our team won a ROUND, because that's as close to winning as I ever get.

Ryan played pool, too. Apparently he needs a little more practice. I didn't even try. It wouldn't have gone well.

I wore my sparkly shoes, because that seemed appropriate for the occasion.

We had our picture taken with one of the full size trees in the house. This house is beautiful at all times, but they do Christmas right, and the trees are stunning - and in every single room.

We all gathered around the TV to count down to 2019, and NBC totally failed me. The year never flashed across the screen all big. This is the first time in probably a decade or more that I haven't gotten a picture of the new year sign on the TV.

Oh, NBC. Why??

Fortunately, on New Year's Day, Ryan and I ran some errands, and downtown Kokomo made up for television's failure.

(So I made my own version.)

Despite the lack of actual photo, we toasted with sparkling grape juice and had our midnight kiss. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

On our way home, we stopped and saw Miss Pheebs. Her people were getting home pretty late, so they wanted us to just make sure she was okay. She was great until she found out we weren't staying. Whoopsie!!

And speaking of whoopsie, we accidentally slept until 9:30 on New Year's Day. I could have slept until noon, but I was surprised we slept as late as we did. Ryan took the day off work so we could spend time together, and he wanted to start his free day with biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

It was a lot like my smoothie...in no way.

And because she hasn't made a blog appearance in a while, I thought I should tell you that Braeya Jo Jo (clearly) thoroughly enjoyed the family vacation day.

I dug into my new Bible study on the book of Matthew, and Ryan took an ice bath. What? Yes, its true. He has a bum ankle right now and thought he'd kick off the new year with an ice bath. (I'm giving myself a pedicure later today. It will NOT feature ice.)

Later in the day, we ran some errands and also ran...a 5K! We opted to use the treadmills, so we could stay warm. I was pretty proud of us. Workouts have been sketchy lately and as previously mentioned, Ryan's not operating at 100%, so to pull off a successful first day 5K was great!

After dinner, we made white chocolate raspberry lattes and settled in with our annual New Year's Day traditions. We went through our box of memories we've collected throughout the year, filled out a new questionnaire for next year, and began a new list of prayer requests on our Surrender Cross. We spent some time praying over those things and over 2019!

So it's been a good start to a new year. I'm grateful for extra time with Ryan, for celebration, and for the return to something I've heard of...called normalcy?