A whole new year experience

It's amazing, really, I can finally report that I did in fact have a very good New Year's Eve this year! (Well, not that it could get worse from last year - I was so sick coming off a JetsGo flight with a cold that I felt like I had been hit by a truck and I ended and a ruptured eardrum and off for a week. New Years consisted of me going to bed at 10:30 pm and staying in bed for almost 2 days).

New Year's Eve started out with me getting a chance to meet up with my best girlfriend Courtney for dinner. I met up with her in the east end at her mother-in-law's place. We had wine, we talked, we were girly. When I arrived, the girls were actually busy upstairs getting ready, so we got to talk and I got to share in the very lovely phenomenon that happens when a bunch of girls are getting ready to go out together. There was hair fixing and outfit choosing. Plus there was something really nice about Courtney asking me to do her eye make-up like I used to do when we were at Queen's. Sigh. So great! It was nice to meet a bunch of her friends that she hangs out with from home and Teacher's College, because it's not always easy to stay in touch about the every day with my girls, seeing as we don't live in the same place anymore. Plus, it's always a treat to talk with Craig, Coutney's husband. He's a really genuine person, and so very fantastic to hang with as well. It was a great start to the night!

Next stop was to visit my friends Coatesy and Ball, uptown. They were having a little shindig at their place and I wanted to stop by. It was great to hang around with some of my Queen's friends that have been spread out all over the place lately - some as far as England. We laughed, we talked, we took silly pictures. It was so fun. A highlight was seeing our friend Dougie getting a little tipsy in the kitchen, he's usually the model of restraint. Luckily it wasn't too messy. ;) Apparently I missed the crowning moment of the night, though, when one of the guys decided to challenge Coatesy to a one for one drinking competition - as expected, the challenger was drunk under the table by the Seaners, in fact, he lost so badly that he puked! Oh my...

But my final destination for the evening was to be with my Freedomize crew to ring in the midnight hour. We ate, we sipped wine, we talked - we even danced like crazy people in Luke's living room. It was so much fun! It was just great to be with these people that I consider to be my family here in Toronto - not that friends aren't good enough, but these are the people I live with and are with most of the time. It was nice to sit and talk - Andrew my best bud was there, my friend Anne Marie, and my friend...ok, this could take forever!

Another highlight of the night was getting a chance to sit and sing worship songs with Anne Marie - I was in a half-asleep kind of mode, and it was just calming to sit and listen to her play the guitar and praise God for the new year. The feeling actually continued on in church the next night - it's a brand new time to get things started and to learn more and to have adventures...it's a good time to be alive and to worship!

My wish now is that all of you out there had a great New Year's Eve as well, and are all feeling the hope of new things to come! Yeehaw 2006!