New Years Eve

On New Year's Eve we went to the beach, stopping to see the elephant seals on the way. Josh and Megan had never been there, and they really enjoyed it. It's worth experiencing at least once, and it's always amazing to see so many huge animals on the beach.

We even got to see some mating in action, which is always a bit disturbing yet fascinating. We feel like we're somehow infringing on their privacy, but they don't seem to mind us. Actually the female really complains loudly about the whole thing, but the male doesn't get the hint and keeps chasing her all around the beach.

Then we headed down to our favorite beach and enjoyed hours of fun.

My parents had actually never been to this beach, since there were plenty of closer beaches where they used to live. But it's our favorite one, and we were so happy they came.

There was one lone elephant seal on our beach who must have taken the wrong turn at Albuqueque. He drew a lot of tourist attention - there was a huge crowd taking pictures of him. He was quite loud, probably wondering where everyone else was.

The kids buried Peter in the sand - he's actually standing in a big hole. This drew some tourists away from the elephant seals, and they started taking pictures of him also!

Jonathan provided the ambient beachy music. It was lovely.

Tyler was next to be buried.

We really didn't think we'd stay as long as we did, but it was so warm and beautiful and not windy (how often does that happen?!) that we couldn't pull ourselves away.

Several groups walked to the end of the pier.

Someone asked us if we were going to stay and watch the sunset. Dave said no, but then he realized that the sun was very close to setting. So we enjoyed the last sunset of 2011, and it was gorgeous.

After we went home, cleaned ourselves up and ate a quick dinner, we all met back at Kristen and Nathan's house for games and food

It's a good thing Dave and Nathan have each other to play games with, because Kristen and I would rather sit and visit and not play games.

We did our countdown to midnight at 10:00. We figured we were ushering in the new year with Jen and Uche and Ben and Barbara.

Then we left the party to put the little kids to bed. We let the oldest 3 stay up and watch a movie until the real midnight, but Dallin and I didn't quite make it.