Happy New Years

Happy New Year!  Or as they say here, "ake-mashite-omedetou-goziamasu"!  New year, or shogatsu, is one of the most important holidays for the Japanese adn we celebrated it right last night!  Last year, we had one of our first neighborhood parties by making a fire pit in a metal garbage can.  This year we amped it up!  By "recycling" old wood pallets and dried out Christmas trees, we were able to make quite a nice stack of firewood.  (Thanks to Stevie, Don and Cannon who cut it all up!)

Cannon cutting the branches off with his pocket knife!

The pile of wood at the beginning of the night.

Of course, we needed entertainment and so the guys devised a way to project Wii onto the side of the building.  It was awesome - nothing like warming up to a few rounds on Just Dance or jamming to the Beatles Rock Band while outside in 40 degree weather with a 20 mile an hour wind!  It was a really fun time.

Crazy fire!

Don and Steve

The kids dancing to Just Dance.

The ladies of the Hill dancing to Just Dance.

The Wii and the fire.

What happens when you add a Christmas tree to a fire pit!