Happy New Year!! Welcome 2009!!

Happy New Year!! And it was the happiest New Years Eve I can remember. Well, at least the most dazzlingly celebrated. I spent New Years Eve with Rose. We began our night dining on pork salads from Cafe Rio and engaging in fantastic conversation about the men in our lives and how grateful we are to be together this night without them! 

We went downtown to First Night at the Gallivan Center and flitted from stage to stage and tent to tent tasting each event sufficiently for exciting fun. We made bee pencils and wrote our New Years Resolutions on honeycombs to be hung in a giant beehive (for the beehive state). It is a TH year for us, Rosey is creating Trust, Healing, and Travel while I am creating THanksgiving and Healing. We also partook of the breakdancing, Latino band, sensual circus fire dancers, local music artists, and party vendors where we found our fabulous "Happy New Year" tiaras that you see modeled in almost every picture of us in the same pose with a different background. :)

After seeing all there was to see, we hopped on trax and headed to Temple Square. On the way we found two young girls out with their grandfather waiting to cross the road. They admired our "princess hats", we enthusiastically thanked them and offered them our green light sticks wrapped around our necks. They joyfully accepted and smiled as we connected them around their necks before dashing down South Temple to the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg where inside we would find one of the most sparkling highlights of the night. We stopped first in the Empire Room where they had 12 singers performing popular memories and music from the 1940s. We sang along until we were gently shushed by a cute asian woman beside us... then we just lip synched through the rest of the songs as mutely as we could. They sang songs like "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", the Coca Cola theme, Moonlight Serenade, and that one song that  Michael Buble sings... "It's You". We sang along with the darling old folks nodding in their chairs with huge grins on their faces as these memories are dusted off and dancing through their minds. 

When the 40s show was over we looked at the schedule of events and raced to the foyer to find a Big Band set playing all the old favorites in our repertoire. We found a cozy spot by one of the pillars and enjoyed almost a whole hour of rich Big Band and muffled dancing. This is where we would have waved our magic wands to have our dad and brothers there to dance with us. And it was confirmed that since we are on the planning committee for the Ruby Reunion, a dance party is definitely on the schedule. While we jived in the corner I noticed many heads turned our way vicariously enjoying the life of our bodies moving and enjoyed many sparkling moments when our eyes met. 

Rose and I got a kick out of the darling gentleman guarding the alternate exit from the building wearing a "Happy New Year" hat. He suavely pointed and winked at everyone passing by while wishing them a "Happy New Year". We eagerly asked to take a picture with him. "Sure!" he said excitedly as he manually placed his arm around Rosey on one side before taking my hand in his on the other. 

About 11:40 we finally connected with Rosey's friend Ryan and decided to meet his party at the U of U Institute for the count down. Yikes! We had a small window of time to meet up with them before 2009. So we hopped on and off Trax, ran 4 blocks to the car (Passing a hobo bumming off some bucks from passersby...eek, keep running) and raced... drove safely across town to the Institute where we met our party at 11:57 pm. They had a ball to drop with a pen of balloons to let go at 12:00. We screamed and cheered the new year in with a shower of streamers and confetti, pictures of 2009 with our hands and eyes, and new year kisses. After Rose got hers, we brainstormed some approaches I could use to eenie minie mo a chosen candidate for the job. We laughed it off and that was the end of that, maybe next year. :)

After the hulabaloo dwindled and the mini Martinelli's was gone, we monkey walked in a line to our cars and headed to Ryan Beck's house for a dance party, sparklers, and good clean chillin' out. The dance party was the most refreshing grooving I have done in a long time--less stress I guess, and jivin' with Rose. I won the name writing with sparklers this year and got to massage Rosey's "dead" feet while we cooled down on the couch. Best New Year's Ever!

New Year's day Rose and I got off early at 10:15 to make her hair appointment in Ogden. We enjoyed Souper Salad for lunch and headed home to make dinner for Grandpa. A whole 24 hours with Rose filled with laughs, memories, moments of truth, raucous singing, dancing, and questions I have always wondered but never dared ask anyone else... What a treat, I love you Rose!