New Year's Eve

Time to get caught-up on the family blog entries. We had a fun New Year's Eve with Steve/Jana and family. There was lots of great food, games and celebration noise makers to make it a memorable event. The new face in the pictures is Michael... Lisa's boyfriend. He is a BYU freshman, plays on the BYU LaCrosse team, and received his mission call to Honduras, leaving in March.

The kitchen was filled with the sweet smells of holiday foods and everyone had a work to do to get it all ready. Some of us had to sample it to make sure it was up to holiday standards.

The center piece was filled with wantons, coconut shrimp, and bacon-wrapped smokey links.

Lisa and Michael made a "hot pockets" dish. Melt-in-your-mouth rolls with tender meat strips inside. There were a lot of other treats to fill out our plates; strawberries and blueberries, chips and dips, baked shrimp, taquitos and several different sauces for more flavor or heat.

Mom taught Bryson how to braid bracelets with parachute cord. His cousins did it last summer and sold them at a free market and made some good money.

McKay started us off with the "Blow-hard" game. The table is tilted and the ball will roll off so you have to regulate your puffs of air to navigate the ball into the various goals within 1 minute. McKay got all three in the goals! Great work Kayz.

Next up was Ryan. It's harder than it looks... isn't it Ry.

Lisa over came her hair and top obstacles in addition to the normal challenges to get her goals.

I got my three goals, but time ran out so no bonus ball for me.

Steve got all three and went for the winning bonus ball.

Michael got the ultra hard steep table angle and still got his 3 + the bonus ball.

Steve and Michael setup the rubber band shooting game. The object of the game was to shoot rubber bands at the TP and break it. Not an easy task for the inexperienced rubber band shooter.

Hold on to that bar tight... here comes the barrage of rubber bands from the boys!

Is this great or what? Mom and Dad let you shoot rubber bands in the house.

After a few sore fingers, Steve takes time to do a little instruction on the proper way to shoot a rubber band with the "Lindsay" technique.

Getting close... it's torn... you hit it again... it's only hanging by a thread... time is up! 

Have to try again.

Here come the "heavy hitters". Hit, hit, hit... why isn't it falling apart yet? Hit, hit, hit again... finally it breaks! TP victory!

Steve and Michael go at it next. Great shots! Michael wins with a super-sized rubber band... 

the "Atomic Blaster" gets the job done!

The girls take a shot at it. This is obviously not their comfort zone. Good shots and good sports. There is no way we could compete with you in the kitchen!

On-lookers cheer and coach the players from the sidelines.

The balancing slinky-head game. A slinky is fastened to a ski hat and you have to lean your head back and catch the compressed slinky on your head. Fun game. Some got really good at it. We wish there was a real-world application for this.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2014!