New Year's Eve

The last day of 2022 was about what you'd expect from this year, a gloomy sort of downcast day.  The weather was rainy and miserable, but maybe later on in the afternoon there was a bit of sunshine peeking through. 

Maddie spent a good bit of time finishing the latest puzzle, a Winnie the Pooh panting from 100 Acre Wood.  We set up the puzzle in the morning, and the thought was that Maddie and the rest of us would be periodically working on it throughout the rest of the day.  But Maddie was so focused on this that she actually finished the thing before the end of the day, or rather, before the end of the year!  We'll have to start up another one tomorrow, I suppose!

Tonight we had some programming to watch including the second Enola Holmes movie, which everyone enjoyed.  We also watched a few episodes of "The Bad Batch" before soon enough, it was approaching midnight.  The entire time, there was the Peach Bowl going on, a football game of apparently epic proportions, featuring the Georgia Bulldogs and the Ohio State Buckeyes.   I think the first thing to note here is that the Buckeyes have an incredible mascot.  But beyond that, there was obviously the football game itself.  It was the sort of game that Georgia sports teams are usually on the other side of, which is to say, we're usually winning and doing so much better until the very last minute, when some sort of Charlie Brown moment occurs and we lose it all.  That was not the case this year at all, and in fact, it was Ohio State that played the part of Charlie Brown.  Literally, Ohio State was winning the game until the last two minutes.  So there was great celebration in Georgia, and weird enough, the final field goal kick attempt that ended the game happened to be made right at the stroke of midnight when we kicked off the new year.

Our recent grocery shopping adventure had us getting some sparkling apple cider in a bottle, and we had some champagne flutes ready for tonight.  At midnight, we were all sipping from our sparkling apple cider... but after that, we had communion together.  Nana had gone to sleep a few hours earlier, but the three of us barely held on until midnight, so tired but determined to make it until the new year.  We watched a livestream of the celebration at EPCOT, watched the countdown there and joined in as together we celebrated the arrival of 2023.  It's going to be a great year - the sun was rising, and it will be warmer and it will be a better day tomorrow.  We just have to get to bed pretty quickly here - tomorrow is church at the regular time, and we've got to get up for that!

Happy New Year!