Ringing In 2014 Right

Ever since we have been parents, our New Years Eves have been pretty lame.  We've gone to dinner...but nowhere too fancy for fear of ruining other diners' meals...and we're usually home by about 10...and asleep before the ball drops!  
Well, this year I decided to do something to change that!  Obviously hiring a babysitter is always an option, but really I like the idea of ringing in the new year with my kiddos (or at least until they go to bed!). We talked about having a party, but then other people would have to drive...and would likely leave before the ball drop for the same reasons we do!
 Luckily, though, we live in a beach town where houses for rent are pretty available!  A few months ago, I contacted a group of our friends and family to see who would be in and then set out to find a house.  At first, I ran up against a brick wall as most places required three nights stay...and we didn't really want to pay for three nights of a "vacation" in our own town!  But I finally hit the jackpot when I found a house for rent by owner that was willing to let us do just two nights...and she discounted the price for each of the two nights so we were really only paying a little bit more for both nights!
And because of that good fortune, we were able to spend New Year's Eve in a pretty nice beach house with 14 our good friends...and 3 other friends for the boys!  It was the most perfect way to ring in the new year.  We all chipped in a contributed a couple dishes to a celebratory cocktail party dinner.  Basically, we just sat around eating, drinking, chatting, and playing with the kiddos.

At 8 PM, we did a little countdown for the kiddos, complete with party glasses (which Levi totally rocked!) and sparkling grape juice in flutes.  They loved it!  They went around cheersing and kissing everyone.

After the kids went to bed, we whipped out the Cards Against Humanity.  Anyone else played that?  I'm not a games person, but this one was actually a blast!  And then we just chatted and hung out some more until the big ball drop and beyond!  Eventually I stopped taking pictures, but you get the idea!

Like I said, it was the perfect way to ring in 2014!  And as an added bonus, we actually got to have a pretty awesome little "staycation."  The house had a game room with foosball, pool, a Wii, and a couple arcade games.  It also had a hot tub (and pool in the summer) and a big jetted tub in our bathroom.  We took full advantage of all of them!

Plus, we got to spend lots of quality time with good friends.  The boys were in absolute heaven having other playmates, young and old, in their very own house and couldn't wait to get downstairs to play with them each day!  

It's probably not surprising that the boys didn't want to leave!  Colton asked us multiple times if we could live in the house forever, so clearly it was a big success...and hopefully something we repeat for many years!