So, we ended the year pretty well, all things considered.
As I mentioned, we spent some time with my brother and his kids, and although we didn't get any formal pictures, I did take this one of Carter and Max sitting with Grandpa!
When the kids and I got back home on Saturday, we had to go out and shovel the old snow from earlier in the week, in order to make room for the new snow that fell last night. They actually got along pretty well while we shoveled, and Jacob even asked Carter to bury him!
I took this picture because the design on the snow was so pretty, but little did I know that I'd be using it later to measure our snowfall!
By the time I went to bed last night, you couldn't see any light escaping. It was right up to the black top. And this morning it was buried. We probably got around 6-8 inches. The boys and I went out mid-morning in the freezing cold to shovel the snow from half of the driveway so Craig could get in when he got back from his roadtrip sometime after noon.
While we were waiting for him to get back, I put together dough for peanut butter blossom cookies, and then after Craig came home and we had lunch, I made them. It mostly went fine, although my new cookie sheet oddly burned the bottoms of part of the batch, even though a different size of the same type of sheet didn't. Oh, well...I'll eat those since I don't have to worry about tasting the burnt part!
The boys went back out into the snow to finish the driveway and have a snowball fight, and then we just had a quiet afternoon with the boys collaborating somewhat successfully on a full setup of a lacrosse game in Carter's room, complete with a ticket table! As a whole this weekend they did pretty well playing together. Still a lot of "incidents", but we're getting there.
Then it was time for the Bills' game, the first time since 2004 that the Bills had a chance at the playoffs on the last week of the season. The odds were small, but with a Bills win and either a Baltimore loss or two specific road teams winning their games, the Bills would be in. The Bills had a good lead, then the game got close as we ate our dinner. I did a "candlelight" dinner in the dining room and Jacob drank out of a fancy wine glass. The boys had leftovers from our meal at UNO the other night, and Craig and I got Chinese. Yum! I tried to get everyone to share their best memory of the year, but only Jacob (Christmas) and I (Baltimore) seemed to get a memory out.
Luckily, after a little bit of stress, the Bills won, but then we had to sit through a nail biter as we watched the end of the Baltimore game. Cincinnati had been winning the entire game, and then in the last eight minutes, Baltimore took the lead. Here we go again...that familiar sick feeling of lost chances. It's random stuff like that that made the Bills have 17 years without the playoffs in the first place. As the time wound down, Cincinnati had the ball but ended up at 4th down and 12. They had to go for it, and sure enough, their quarterback threw an amazing pass and the receiver ran it in for the touchdown! Of course, every Bills fan pretty much lost it at this point, and watching Facebook and Twitter was amazing! They still had to hold the Ravens for the last couple minutes, and when they did--well, holy cow! The Bills are going to the playoffs for the first time since 1999! I realized I was still in college then, and it's crazy to think about all that's happened in that span of time. It has been such a joy tonight watching all of the coverage--video of the Bills' locker room, fan reactions--and knowing that next week we actually get to go to the party. It may not last long or go particularly well, but the drought is over! What a great way to end the year!
We finished off the night watching Twitter's reaction to Mariah Carey's NYE redo (after her total flop last year), and counting down with Jacob until midnight. And now...onward to another year. Here's to hoping it's a good one!
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