Ringing in 2015

Happy New Year! I am excited for many great things to happen in 2015. 2014 was a pretty trying year on many levels, but we ended it in a fun way last night. We have rarely hosted any events at our house in our married life (like 1 other), mostly due to my social anxiety. But, I've been in a really good place lately, and we had a really great time hosting our anniversary party down in Gulf Shores. So, we decided to go for an invite basically everyone we know in Memphis to our one, and possibly only, gathering. Only about 15 people were able to make it, which was a great size for us. I had some stress getting ready for the party, but Andrew was really awesome and did a lot to help get us all ready to go. I've thrown my sleep schedule completely off over the past week. Madison was here visiting along with our nephews, Noah (5) and Micah (3). So we had been doing a lot of staying up pretty late and waking up early. Then I drove everyone home to Louisville the night before the party and proceeded to drive all night to make it back by yesterday morning. I managed to take a nap in the afternoon, or else I may not have made it through the party. Andrew prepared lots of delectable food, elevating my suggested sausage and cheese plate to a charcuterie and fromage plate with cornichons instead. He made some killer venison barbeque and an amazing venison ham. The stuff he's been making with the deer that had temporarily taken over our refrigerator has been well worth the inconvenience of having two huge deer hindquarters in various staging of curing for several weeks. We had a 5 gallon keg of Ghost River golden ale and some other libations. In all, we had a pretty decent spread, I think. The highlight of the night definitely came when Andrew decided to saber a champagne bottle with a chef's knife at the stroke of midnight. The bottle exploded in his hand and glass flew everywhere! Amazingly, no injuries were sustained! It was quite the memorable moment! So, while it took some preparation and work to overcome my weird mind, it was totally worthwhile to get our friends together for a fun time! It was a great way to ring in 2015! I can't wait to see what else 2015 has in store!