Monday, January 01, 2007

What a Way to Bring in a New Year

How do you bring in the New Year when you are in the fifty something club? One way is by being around people who are much younger and who have a way of keeping you much younger.


Saturday night Brad and Tessa Hobbs were at our house along with our John and Tami. This was Georgia Bulldog night. We grilled steaks and cheered the Dawgs to victory. Actually Brad, John and I cheered the Dawgs to victory. The girls were mostly looking at baby stuff on the computer.

Brad is in his second year of Medical School. I found out Saturday night from Tessa that Brad was not only Valedictorian of his high school class but was also Valedictorian of his University senior class. And he was the quarterback of his high school football team. Tessa has her Masters and teaches kindergarten in the school system here. My goodness they are exceptional folks. They are quickly becoming like family to us.

Last night we had more of our “young couple friends” hanging out at our house to bring in the New Year.


Stephen Walls and his wife Kristi were here. Stephen and Kristi played college basketball and are another couple who are just plain fun being around. Jody and Sara Dean were also here and they are expecting their first child in a few months. All four of these folks are school teachers and the guys are coaches. And all four are the kind of folks you would love your young kids to be around in classrooms or in sports activities.

Dale Talley was also here. Her husband, Michael, is in the Air Force and is in Iraq for 100 days. He is scheduled to be back in the states in the early part of February. Michael called from Iraq at midnight our time (8AM Iraq time) to wish his bride a Happy New Year. She held up the phone so we could all (in unison) wish him a very loud and hearty Happy New Year. There is no way I could ever express how thankful I am for the honor to be even a small part of the support for a wife while her husband is in harms way defending our country.


The guys played cards part of the night in one room while the girls talked and laughed about girlie things. They even got out our wedding pictures. Later we all ended up playing a game someone got for Christmas.

The bottom line is we laughed (and ate a lot) and had a blast with these young folks. They all are part of our church home group we meet with every week.

I’m not sure what time they left but it was way past Kathy’s and my bedtime. I told Kathy we need to go to bed in case these folks need to go home.

Not really.

One of the girls commented as she was leaving that she loves hanging out with us because her parents are somewhere else and she can’t hang out with them as much as she would like.

I’m not sure where her parents are exactly. What I am sure of is that these parents did one heck of a job raising their kids.

And we will be their substitute parents just anytime.

What an honor!

And what a great way to bring in a New Year.

2 comments:

Luke Goddard said...

Looks like ya'll had a jolly time.

Anonymous said...

We all had such a great time! Thanks again for having us over. Cant wait until the next time.