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Subtitle: Catherine and Cabot often host a New Year's Eve party. This year, December 31, 2012, was no different. It's an alcohol-free party, but we have tend to have lots of fun, playing various games, consuming food, and general goofing, in the around direction. They have decided to create a few traditions, including having a portable fire-pit going right around midnight outside in their driveway. But more on that in a bit.
Related pictures include: Miscellaneous fun, the Bookloft (a cool bookstore), and hiking around in Prairie Oaks Metropark.
00-DSC_3660: Mowgli, the rare bearded variety.
01-DSC_3661: Cabot enjoys having his picture taken.
03-DSC_3667: Xander keeping Cabot company in the comfy-chair.
04-DSC_3668: More Mowgli.
05-DSC_3670: Stephanie seems agast at something on her computer while Frank
ponders the implications.
06-DSC_3673: Allie is happy!
07-DSC_3675-header: Games: Telephone Pictionary
07-DSC_3675-headertext: Telephone Pictionary is, at this point, the only thing I have in the Play section of my web site. It's a fun game involving drawing pictures, figuring out what they mean and writing it down, and then having someone else draw what that represents, and so on, until the meaning is hilariously twisted. Always a fun group game, and we played it this year.
07-DSC_3675: People work on their drawing or text.
08-DSC_3676: Carina is playing, and Catherine is amused at the bottom right corner of the picture.
09-DSC_3677:
10-DSC_3678: Catherine and the other person in red are looking up and to their right, while I make a strange face (perhaps I am about to spit out some viscious fluid or something, I don't recall) and fire up my heat vision.
10a-DSC_3664:
11-DSC_3679: Cabot wishes everyone a very happy, merry New Years. Now get out of his face.
12-DSC_3680: Mowgli ponders his new evil plan to conquier the world.
13-DSC_3681: Fucking product placement. Even while people are working hard on telephone pictionary.
14-DSC_3683:
15-DSC_3684:
16-DSC_3689-header: Snacks and Other Indoor Items
16-DSC_3689-headertext: Of course what party would be compete without food. People tend to bring a variety of things, in addition to the good things provided.
16-DSC_3689: A variety of snacks.
17-DSC_3690: This year we didn't make sushi. No problems as guests provided it.
18-DSC_3691: Two different kinds (actually, 3 people brought sushi and it was
consumed).
19-DSC_3692: I did not take this picture (I think Stephanie gets credit), and I've no idea how she achieved this effect, but it looks quite cool. Like some sort of memory flashback in a high keytone style. I like it.
20-DSC_3693: From 101 Dalmations. I was told the number was in the high 90s,
though not quite 101.
21-DSC_3694:
22-DSC_3695: Mowgli and max.
23-DSC_3697: 99.
24-DSC_3698: Carina's door. I found it amusing. She's got a way before she's a teenage, at least according to the calendar.
25-DSC_3699: Catherine demonstrates the making of the origami crane, which
will be cast into the flames of the fire.
26-DSC_3700: Stephanie and Robin work on a crane.
27-DSC_3702:
28-DSC_3703: Catherine ponders her new year wish.
29-DSC_3707-header: Dison New Year Tradition 1: Midnight Fire
29-DSC_3707-headertext: A few years back, Catherine and Cabot started a tradition involving a nice fire outside, right around midnight. Guests are invited to write down something from the ending year that they want to let go. And then they write down something they want (to achieve) in the new year. Before midnight, they throw the crane into the fire and let it fly away up upon the flames. At midnight, they put the second paper in to let the words fly free.
29-DSC_3707: Cabot and Dave get the fire going. Cabot is quite comfortable in his shorts.
30-DSC_3708:
31-DSC_3711: Cabot tests the fire with his hand. Actually, there's a sequence of pictures where his hand darts out into the fire and back again. This was the one in which he was closest to the fire. He was quite unharmed.
32-DSC_3715: It's always easy to find the Dison household, as the front yard is a festival of inflatable Christmas holiday goodness. There is also a tar on top of a ridiculously high evergreen tree (it's visible from the highway nearby).
33-DSC_3719: Allie looks kind of spooky, under-lit by the flames.
34-DSC_3723: But not as spooky as now. Note the crane in her right hand.
35-DSC_3727: Now it was my turn, and I gave Allie the camera to take a spooky picture of me. I tried for a stern look here.
36-DSC_3728: And then a "bat-shit crazy" one without my glasses here (I wanted to avoid the reflection). I played with this one a little in post-production, darkening everything below my head to the flames, to give a more striking effect. Sure, it's cheating, but it's effective, I think.
37-DSC_3733: Note that Carina is not terrified of me.
38-DSC_3735: A little end-of-the-year snowman maintenance.
39-DSC_3738: Catherine, Mowgli, and Cabot await the years end.
40-DSC_3743: A wish is thrown into the fire.
41-DSC_3744: Whoosh!
42-DSC_3747: Stephanie prepares her crane.
43-DSC_3750:
44-DSC_3751: Stephanie and her crane.
45-DSC_3752: Catherine prepares her crane to be consumed by flames.
46-DSC_3753:
47-DSC_3755:
48-DSC_3758:
49-DSC_3759:
50-DSC_3761: Happy and Somber New Years everyone!
51-DSC_3762: And of course, lest we forget, New Years is for cell phones and
text-messages.
52-DSC_3764-header: Dison New Year Tradition 2: Outdoor Attacker-Defender
52-DSC_3764-headertext: The other Dison tradition is playing the game Attacker-Defender shortly after midnight. Normally, we play in the street, but it was snowy, sloppy, and icy enough that we played in a rather confined area in the driveway before it reaches the sidewalk.
The rules are simple. Before starting, everyone (silently) picks one person to be their attacker and one person to be their defender. And then when the game starts, they move (by walking) to place their defender between their attacker and them. Of course, everyone else is doing the same thing and chaos, mayhem, and hilarity ensue.
52-DSC_3764: Instructions are given while cell phones were used.
53-DSC_3768: People pick their attacker...
54-DSC_3770: ...and their defender.
55-DSC_3772: And then it starts.
56-DSC_3774: People move around, trying to align themselves, while screwing up
the plans of others (and so on).
57-DSC_3776:
58-DSC_3780: Lots of smiles, as it's a silly game.
59-DSC_3785:
60-DSC_3786: After a while, it dawned on me that as I moved, everyone kind of moved parallel with me. And I didn't really need to move. I just turned a bit, and everyone rotated around with me. I'm not saying I was everyone's defender, but close enough to enough people that I became the central hub.
61-DSC_3788: Thus, I started pirouetting around.
"Having a conceited ego is one thing. Actually being told that by a machine is another." -- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams.
62-DSC_3791: There was a good bit of snow that fell that day.
63-DSC_3792: Cabot starts the new year off doing a little work on his snowman.
64-DSC_3794: Cabot-size snowman. He doesn't do anything small.
65-DSC_3796-header: More Games: Bananagrams
65-DSC_3796-headertext: Bananagrams was another game we played, after midnight.
65-DSC_3796: Allie had some good words. I must admit though, I'm doubtful about words that use 'q' without a 'u'. But she has 'pee', so that's OK.
66-DSC_3797: Because I had 'poo'. My words are not nearly as interesting.
67-DSC_3798: Robin was furiously working, hands switftly moving rearranging things.
68-DSC_3800: Catherine made words like 'damnation', 'rabble', 'wheelie', and 'shimmering'. But she is an English teacher, so I hardly think that counts.
69-DSC_3802: Mowgli, Cabot, and Stephanie play some other card game (I forget what that was). Cabot has his game face on, or maybe just his 'Frank is about to take a picture of me' face.