Happy New Year! 2010

All of the Pendleton side of the family came to town today for the New Year and for Grandma Shirley’s 80th Birthday Bash. We ate a great dinner as always and then went to First Night downtown St. George.  We froze! Lucy got to ride some slides & swings and then dance a little to the music before heading home. It is tradition to have fondue just before the New Year strikes along with a little bubbly.

We are known for having bad things happen to us on this great holiday in years past.  The first year we got married the boys in the family were in a car accident that totaled my car and broke some of Dad’s ribs.  Then a few years later we spent the night again in the hospital for a blood clot in my arm.  We really try to stay close to home on December 31st!  Not without fail we almost had another tragedy.

Well Mom bought these new kind of sparklers from the store.  She showed them to me earlier in the night but I didn’t take notice to them or the warning sign.  They were labeled “Sparkler Whips.”  Just before midnight she took the grandkids out in the courtyard to do fire crackers.  Lucy was first.  Mom grabbed her sparkler and lit it…only to be followed by the loudest noise you have ever heard.  In come all of the kids running for their lives.  I think Cade even was high stepping!  Mom ran in after them laughing her head off.  Come to find out these fire crackers were more like fire works!  On the front of the package it read “do not hold.”  It burnt the concrete good and I can’t imagine what it could have done to Mom or Lucy if they wouldn’t have let it go.  We all laughed about it for hours…there is never a dull moment in the Pendleton house.

Eric on the other hand was so mad. You can see it in this picture.  Lucy didn’t want me to let her down for a while.  A little while later Lane grabbed my Mom by her cheeks and said …

“Grandma, don’t you ever, ever do that again!”

This year we just might not even open our front door!