Out with a bomb, In with a splash!

WARNING!!!
This could be a VERY long read, proceed with caution.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Well, today is January 1, 2006 and what a great way to start the new year than to blog (happy 60th) about our swell NYE parties, eh??

Isn't it bizarre to think that on NYE, all your parties don't kick in til late? It's the one time where everything can be done before the festivities begin! Including a very brief game of War of the Worlds with my brother (i reached level 2 before giving up, big achievement i thought!) and his online team-speak nerd, geek friends who devote their lives to this phenomenon!! Even when there is an Aussie chick in the room (they're mostly Americans) they still talk about their game......WOW!!! I mean, i'm nothing to look at but damn, i got a sweet voice!!! hahaha....

After much confusion and little advertising, a party was held for our Earlwood youth group at the kind perusal in the residence of Toni and Murray Smith. Originally the celebratory happenings were to begin at 7:30pm but things didn't start happening until 9pm or 10pm.

The evening started when the boys cooked a snag sizzle otherwise known as a bbq, with no salad and almost raw sausages....so we (the girls) lit up the barbie and recooked the sausages until they were just right. Mind you the steak was done well by the little Aaron Campbell. I'd say he takes after his father, bbq chef, Mark Campbell (top job and an A+ on the child raising!). After much thought and planning, we came to the conclusion that the ogre of a dog's name was either Lucy or Danielle (we had no idea?!). Dina decided it was Danielle, I decided it was Lucy, both suggestions being Dina's! We took the sausages back inside and those of us who hadn't eaten, because we got there late, had a feast. We also found out that the dog's name was in fact Lucy, not Danielle as originally guesed!

Two tv's were set up. One being used for the game cube with Mario Party and Sponge Bob games, the other being set up for the Buzz game and Eye Toy on PS2. Now, unfotunately, i can't give you a briefing of what happened on the game cube as most of my time was spent playing the PS2. The first game on the PS2 was the buzz game. For those of you who don't know, the Buzz game is a music quiz gameshow type of game. There are only 4 players but two contestants decided to play in teams. Myself (aka AB), Ben Lines (aka Thorn), Dina Hunter and Aaron Campbell (the Suzies) and Nathan Hodges and Ben Knight (aka none other than the YOBBOS, go figure!). A good game was had, with Thorn and the Yobbo's both competing for the losing position and the Suzies and AB both competing for winning place! The Suzies won but not because of Aaron, who claimed to have known all the songs even though we were playing in old and new music mode, most songs being written long before his little life began!!! Aaron, you don't know jack?! Good times, good times, other Buzz games followed but none were as memorable as the very first game played that night!

Recently i did happen to purchase the sims 2 for PS2 and so dina and i endeavoured to play that. We were only at the choose a sim stage (trust, it takes long!) when the Drysdale siblings told us they were off to watch fireworks!!! It was mentioned earlier in the night that we would go with them because this so called 'hill' was just in Earlwood. So while the others lethargically stayed behind, Rachel Unicomb, Dina, Rebecca and Jonathan Drysdale and myself all took a drive to 'the hill'. There was the most people on this hill i'd ever seen!!! Near Elyse's house!!! After a terrible park we all climbed out and ran up the hill, very extremely aware that we had possibly missed midnight?! In fact, there was no actual countdown that i recall! We searched for a spot to watch the fireworks until we eventually found a relatively good posi. The fireworks were lovely, just lovely, a bit too much red and love etc but just lovely from what we could see! It was nice to overhear a hard core gangsta proclaim to one of his mates 'Happy New Year and i hope that 2006 is the best year of your life'....it really did touch my heart even though we were all in a slightly silly mode - the best is yet to come!

After the 'worx' were over, we decided that there really was just one more final bang to occur and so we stayed to the very end. It was amusing to watch people as they left turn around to see what they had missed when we would ooo and ahhh at the 'final bang'. Some people would turn around and keep watching for hours because of this 'final bang' that they had apparently missed. A few young lads caught on and i noticed them having a bit of a giggle at what we were doing. One has to amuse oneself somehow?!

A hug-the-blowup-lit-snowman floating five was executed and various other floating fives were suggested which i'm not going into detail about here....let's just say that they were difficult to carry out because of the unwillingness of participants. So much for NYE being a night to do anything and get away with it, eh rachel and dina?!

We all headed back to where the party was with a small detour on the way (no comments will be published if any names are mentioned!!). When we got back we realised that some people only had the intention of staying til midnight and that they were going home. Pikers!!!!!

So those of us who watched the 'worx' decided to crash on the lounge for a bit (the techno remixes of auld lang syne were very quietly playing on the laptop in the background!). This got boring so i proceeded to the kitchen for more drink and ice. It was discovered earlier in the previous year that i have an unnatural obsession with ice. Ever since i was a young kid, i have enjoyed exhuberant amounts of ice! I am at the stage where karaoke drinks are ordered like this....

'Yes ma'am?'

'Ahh, i'd like a schooner of water please and a schooner of ice'

This is how much i love ice, the bartenders always give me the evil, bemused eye, but one must do what one must do in order to possess ice!

Anyway, so i was headed to the kitchen for more drink and ice. Rachel and Rebecca were in there having an old wives meeting. Honestly, they both had drinks in hand and the other arm crossed in front of them. Soooooo, i joined their conversation, hand in one pocket, drink in the other. Pretty soon Dina also joined our conversation and before long we were all talking about our husbands and kids in a Kath and Kim type conversation. Ahhhh wasn't it just the funniest! Topics ranged from the laziness of men, to what our kids were up to and how they were all going which ones were in jail etc, to the hot, sexy cops we kept meeting, to our homemade wares, the scratchy toilet paper not this soft stuff, none of this consumerism!!! Rachel, i believe you still owe Dina the homemade soap recipe!

All the while, the boys in the adjoining room had been silently playing the gamecube, listening to our kitchen talk. They must've been particularly upset and disturbed about us putting down the male race as two of them came over to put their five cents worth in on behalf of the other sex. Ben Knight coming over being some sort of she-male and Joshua blackman coming over defending his species. These boys are odd, i tell you!

So the ladies (aka CWA) took their conversation into the icy cold lounge room (in an effort to make the degrees warmer, i actually made it colder, turning down the degrees, instead of up, my head wasn't screwed on that night!!!). Here they left their country nsw accents in the kitchen and picked up british accents, with the conversation turning to teachers these days and the lack of productive education happening in schools. Some ladies were skating on very thin ice in their hostility and conversation, weren't they rachel?!

Beverages started getting low and Kylie Unicomb came into the room with a full bottle of coke....the ladies having a chat were disgusted (she being an upper-class snob) that she had the real stuff while we were only able to afford LA Ice etc.....she came back several minutes later only to bring us full bottles of Lemon drink and Ginger Beer, who did she think she was?!

After the women took their first trips to the bathroom for 2006, the conversation ended up moving back in with the boys.....here the accents just got crazy and the conversation went wild, dinnit?!

Dina came into the conversation as an Egyptian woman with an Egyptian accent....which is fine for her because well, she actually is Egyptian! But i came in with some hideous accent which no-one had any idea of?! Not even me?!?! Mind you, Dina swayed to the accent i created/made up. I'm not even going to attempt to relay the conversation because it was just out of this world. Pre-requisite is a very big word for a foreigner, isn't it Dale and Kylie, do you know what i say, we learn this before we come, yes????! You no understand what i say?!!!

From about 3am - 5:30am we all were talking about mindless things which i think was the tiredness in all of us! We were denied the right to see the sun rise as people shut the flippin' curtain and refused to allow us see it, what's the point of NYE, huh?? what's the point?! It was suggested at one point that instead of doing the church service at the usual time, seeing as though everyone was all awake we should just do it right there and then. But it didn't happen. In fact I haven't been to church all year!!!

So at the mark of 5:30am everyone who wasn't sleeping at the house, departed in broad daylight and so in came the new year with a scorcher of a day (topping 50 degrees) on the 1st January 2006.

If you're still kickin' it with me at this point, i'd like to thank you for taking the time, opportunity and effort to read about our NYE bash and i wish you all the best for the future in the new year. May it be blessed and fulfilling and may you impact other lives around you in a Christ-like, powerful way!

'Out with a bomb, in with a splash!'
Tink xoxo