2011 Here We Come...

New Year's Eve.  Not one of my favorite holidays.  I always feel like I should be doing something incredibly special to mark the ending of a year and beginning of a new one, but somehow it always ends up being one of the most boring evenings of the year.  Seriously, of all the New Year's in my life, I can remember about 5 of them.  The rest have been erased from my memory due to lack of memorability. Well not this year...

The Three Musketeers  (Kace, Liz and myself) have been saying for about the past decade that we should go out (as in leave the house) on New Year's and we finally did it.  And a night out it was.

We headed out to Farm Burger.  Which is one of my new favorite burger places.  Still comes in second place to Fuddruckers on account of the Fudd nacho cheese. But since Fuddruckers had the audacity to close their Atlanta locations, it will totally suffice.  Homegrown ingredients from local farms, including beef and bacon.  And IT IS THE BEST BACON I'VE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE.  I cannot reiterate that enough.  It makes me want to buy a pig.  It's thick and yummy and it melts in your mouth. 

And then we stood in the parking lot at Farm Burger for awhile and Kace took pictures.  It's like breathing to her.  And they gave me a lesson on the appropriate head distance for group pictures.  Note above- I am exhibiting improper head distance etiquette.  Your cheeks must be touching. Kace and Liz's cheeks are like magnets.  They magically are drawn together whenever a camera is in sight.

Better.  See all the cheek squashing going on in this picture.  I can't say that I'm totally comfortable with this yet, but I'm getting better.  Obviously, they weren't all that comfortable either.  Either that or they just have crazy eyes from all the camera flashes.

Peanut Butter and Jelly... or Biscuits and Pear Preserves... Or Shrimp and Grits... whatever food analogy you want.  They were meant to be together.  And Davey's really not that much taller than Kace.  He was levitating... On a curb. 

And we spent some time in the parking lot with our friend Will.  Who gave us ins and outs of how not to spread germs.  Don't touch the top of people's arms.  Cause you know people sneeze in their armpits.

Then we went next door to some Irish bar to hear Will and some of his friends play some music.  Unfortunately, they started late and we had a schedule to keep so we didn't get to hear him.  Fairly uneventful.   Some really bad, cold coffee and a guy being taken away via ambulance.

Then we hopped over to Eddie's Attic to hear our good friend MPJ play.  Yes, we were bar hopping.  There were only two bars, but we totally hopped from one to the other. 

There's about 30 more pictures just like this.  But I'll spare you.  Kace likes taking pictures.  Did I mention that?

Here's a great picture.  Kace managed to cut out all of our heads at the same time.  Karis drove down and met us which was wonderful.  The long lost sister.  I think she thought she was ducking out of camera view.  You can see that she was not.  I'm listening intently and Dave's looking mischievous over there in the corner.

It was a wonderful concert.  Always good to see Matthew and family.  Good music, good times, good rowdy crowd. With one flaw.  He played through the midnight countdown.  Which is my favorite part of New Year's.  And not just played through, guitar soloed through the New Year's.  The picture above was just prior to midnight and that's my "He's really not going to stop, he's going to play a guitar solo when we should be counting down" face.  It was okay though.  Everyone made a bunch of ruckus at midnight anyhow. We had fun.

Ruckus makers.  We stayed at Eddie's until well after I had already turned into a pumpkin.  And then we headed over to our friend Holly's place for a little get together she was having.  We sat on her lovely porch.  I drank gingerbread eggnog.  And held out as long as I could before I made everyone else get in the car so we could leave because I could stay awake no longer.

It's fun to get out every now and then.  But not too much.  It took me two weeks to recuperate from staying up that late.  And that was New Year's 2011.