Happy New Year!

Well, we enjoyed a mostly uneventful New Year's Eve last night and had a great time driving around with Matthew in his new (to him) car. Everything looked magical - the moon was almost full, and there was snow on the fields so everything looked really surreal. It was lovely, and lots of people had their Christmas lights still up, so that was fun, too.

The eventful part of the evening came when the firework we bought a few weeks ago (cleverly called "The Out of Space" (I think it was intended to be "Outer Space", kind of like the soap holder my sister bought my at a Chinese market in Ottawa that said "Happy and Enjoy") was lit in Matthew's back yard. It was one of those huge fireworks which sits on a nice level surface and has a whole bunch of different smaller fireworks within it, all lit by a single wick. Matthew lit the single wick, then came running across the lawn toward us to watch from a safe distance. There was a huge CRACK which made me jump and yell, and the above picture is the only one I got before I clued in that Adam was yelling to me to run away from the fireworks that were exploding straight toward us. Apparently what happened was that somehow, all of the smaller fireworks inside had lit at the same time, making the huge sounds and tipping it over for one extraordinary firework. We were kind of disappointed, but it definitely made for a memorable experience. Maybe I should have clued in from "The Out of Space" that it might not have been the greatest quality merchandise.