Josh and I have now been married five years. Our first New Year’s Eve together, we had just finished an amazingly exciting (yet draining) Christmas break packed with our marriage, a honeymoon, and three different wedding receptions in three different states. We had just moved into our chilly and empty house and were sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And we both had colds. We were hopped up on NyQuill and didn’t have much energy to do more than drink some sparkling cider, eat a cupcake, and crash.

Unfortunately, going along with the trend, none of our New Year’s Eve celebrations since have been especially exciting. (Though I have to say that that first year, when we were looking in dismay at our empty NyQuill bottle and jokingly quoting Pirates of the Caribbean, was pretty special.)

Anyway, for a while now I’ve been craving a truly celebratory New Year’s. And this one didn’t disappoint. Here’s some of our favorite parts about welcoming the year 2014:

• Attending the famous maybe-almost-10th-annual Ellsworth New Year’s Eve party
• Having the kids (even though they were sick) sleep well enough at the Ellsworths’, even through the noise, so that we could party all the way through the countdown
• Chowing down on M&Ms, Mom’s traditional black-eyed-pea salsa, homemade wassail, and all the other goodies
• Winning $50 at the ginormous 8-table Bunco game (the luck is credited to Josh; he won every round except one)
• Dancing at the amazingly hip-hoppin’ dance: aka, my family’s gameroom, which my younger siblings converted into a total dance hall. We’re talking black plastic covering all the walls, lasers, fog machine, surround sound speakers, glow sticks, music so hip Josh and I didn’t know how to dance to it – it was insane. The dance went on all night long. My younger siblings, cousin David, cousin Byron (shout-out to our blog’s biggest fans!), and soon-to-be-brother-in-law Griff all have some serious moves! Josh and I are old fogies and didn’t stay on the dance floor all night, but we definitely got our fill. It was probably my favorite part of the night.
• The huge confetti party (/fight) at the countdown (this is a long-standing tradition at my parents’ house, and it gets bigger and better every year)
• Helping my dad make the quadruple batch of waffles for the big warm breakfast after the countdown (doing the math was an exciting challenge)

All in all, it was an awesome night. Ellsworths, you really know how to throw a party. Thank you for the wonderful time! And happy New Year to everyone!