Celebrating New Year's Eve

Bob and I are getting old. We realize this more with each New Year’s Eve. When we were young, we went out on the town for the whole evening of New Year’s Eve, like most did at our age. It was a big deal, a big night! Lots of fun! When Dawn came along we hired a babysitter and continued to go out. When the boys came along, we didn't do the bar scene, instead we started going out to eat early in the evening to a "family oriented" restaurant and took the kids along, then came home. As the kids became old enough to go out, we sat at home and watched them go out. Sometimes we would go out early in the evening to eat and follow it with a movie. As the years passed, we started just staying home and celebrating at home. If we do decide to go to a restaurant we do it very early in the evening. Usually by midnight we are fast asleep on the chairs in the living room waiting for the magic hour! We tell ourselves we don’t want to be out on the road when there are so many drunk drivers. We tell ourselves we enjoy going out early and spending the later part of the evening together, but is the real reason because we are getting old? One of my friends told me "you aren't getting old, you're getting wiser". I hope that's the case.

This year, we thought we’d eat out early and then maybe take in a movie. This afternoon Bob suggested that since tomorrow the weather may be snowy and roads bad, that we should go out tonight instead, and we should go early, since it’s so foggy! This is the first year we've done our "celebrating" a night early! We went to a restaurant in our area, due to the fog, and we were there by 4:30! Service was great, not many were there that early. We relaxed and took our time .. we were still back home by 6! We will spend tomorrow evening at home, maybe I will cook something special. For you local readers, we went to “The Sunset” on Martin Road. We have never been there for an evening meal. It was very good. The atmosphere was lovely, there was a fireplace in the room, which was lit and decorated for the holidays. I had my usual soup that I’ve been living on these days, but for some reason, I am able to get broiled shrimp down…I tried it last Sat. night in Hudson, with no side effects. So tonight I tried them again after the soup, and I think I’m alright. The shrimp were very large, there were 6 of them on a bed of wild rice. I was only able to eat three, and brought home the other three for tomorrow.

In my post below I wrote about the restaurant we used to go to for New Year’s Eve celebrations the first 5 years or so of our marriage. We started with dinner there, then we would make the rounds of the bars (something we never do anymore!). The restaurant used to be on the waterfront, all of my Duluth readers that grew up here will remember it. I’m sure a lot of you have great memories of it as we do! Read on below: