Dawn of a New Era

Happy New Year's, America!

How's everybody feeling today?  Like utter crap, right?

Word.

So Kris and I spent New Year's Eve up in Traverse City this year, sans kids of course (we dumped them off at my mom's, as 'kids' and 'New Year's Eve' never spells 'fun.')  My brother Chris and his new wife, Nicole, were hosting a mini-reception for their wedding up at her parents' house, foregoing the usual, full-blown reception. . . and consequently saving a butt-load of money in the process.

Nicole's folks' place in Traverse City

Still, they ended up forking out enough to treat their limited guest list with top-shelf booze, Qdoba catering, and free lodging, so we could hardly complain.

(Though that two-hour drive north definitely wasn't fun.)

All in all, there were about six couples there, a few randoms, and one kid.  So this basically meant that everyone had to eat and drink enough for seven or eight full-size adults.

Let's do this.

This was a pretty decent Imperial Brown from a local Michigan brewery.  Great way to kick off the evening.

Kris and Nicole had set up one of these. . . things. . . for people to take pictures in front of.  It would see a lot of use before the end of the night.

Kris and I ended up arriving after almost everyone else, but we still beat the Qdoba caterer by about a half an hour.  When she did show up, she brought so much food that it took her about twenty minutes to set everything up.  This was, literally, a feast for about fifty people.  The next morning, Chris and Nicole sent everyone home with a huge grocery bag FULL of Qdoba fixings.  Which, obviously, was awesome.

As a whiskey lover, the selection on hand was indeed much appreciated.  I typically gravitate towards Irish whiskeys; this one was pretty good.

That's a disgusting amount of queso.

After people took posed New Year's pics in front of that glittery backdrop (the one Kris is standing in front of), they uploaded the pic to an app connected to a blue-tooth Polaroid-ish printer.  They'd then hang the pics up on this string set-up for people to check out.

Borthers

Eventually, I decided to start printing random pictures of famous people to add to Chris and Nicole's growing collection (Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, Cuba Gooding Jr., etc.)

Cleaning up the uneaten food and packaging it for people to take home.

Breaking into the good stuff. . .

I think this is the first 'couple picture' Kris and I have taken together in a few years.

There was some college football game on, but I didn't watch it.  Honestly, I don't really care for college football:  I don't get the point of watching a bunch of 19-year-old kids playing sports.

Hangin' out around the ol' 10 lb bucket of queso. . .

Locally-distilled whiskey.  You really don't think 'Traverse City' when you think of Bourbon, but it wasn't bad.

Check it out:  they randomly pulled this dude out of the netherworld to perform at Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve.  I had thought Jimmy was dead for the last six years or so.  You can imagine, then, my surprise upon learning that he's still belting out his classics today.  Inexplicably in Times Square for New Year's Eve.

The next morning, Kris and I got to drive all the way back from Grand Traverse Bay (not-quite-pictured here) to Midland in a  frickin' blizzard.  I can't begin to describe to you how shitty - and LONG - that was.

- Brian