Quick, quick!

Will three large Domino's pizzas AND a pot of spaghetti be enough to feed seven 16 year-old boys, plus my family of four???

And why is Mom always the last to know???

Too late for that. Looks like I'm gonna have to stoke 'em up on Cheez Its and chocolate.

I gave permission for two 16 year-old boys to join us, knowing full well that they all travel in packs...

(link...)

Happy New Year, skb, Michele, and everyone. Thanks for having another year behind us where we've had such a cool place to hang our cyber hats. Tin foil ones too!

Hope everyone has a healthy and prosperous year.

(Off-topic)

Lest my posts last night caused any of you parents to 16 year-olds to wonder if yours are the only teens in town disallowed to haul carloads of friends around on New Year's Eve, the answer is "no."

I originally fielded a question from my son as to whether he could join Z and friends for an evening out on the road as Z, my son told me, had permission to borrow his mom's van and load it up (with a 17 year-old friend not subject to the graduated driver license restrictions driving Z's mom's vehicle).

My answer was "no," and after I spoke with young Z's mom, it appeared that her son, too, had been overly optimistic.

I'm pleased to report that of the five (not seven, after all) 16 year-olds to have joined us last night, four were delivered to our doorstep by mom or dad and only one--who lived just a mile from our house and didn't need to drive any major thoroughfare to reach us--arrived driving himself.

I just wanted to pen this postscript to assure any passers-by who may now or soon be struggling with this parental issue that lots of us are only gradually putting our kids on a longer tether.

They took over the dining room table for a rousing card game and ate a lot of junk food, is all. They're still kids--good kids.

Carry on...

My New Year's Day brunch went off without a hitch. I had 14 people in attendance, and I gave away free books that I had culled from my collection.

Happy New Year, R. Neal & bizgrrl! And thanks so much for giving us this place to congregate.

Tamara, the mother of my godson says they are like deer traveling in herds and eating everything in sight. Noah will be 21 in March. He and his sister, who will be 25 in March, got stuck with their parents in Little Rock after the Christmas Eve ice storm sans power for six days. They were happily exported to their respective homes (Loyola New Orleans for N and Brooklyn for his sis) yesterday.

Horrific appetites aside, I'll bet your good friends enjoyed Noah and his sis and much as we enjoyed our crew last night, Pam!

And you'd be really impressed with how quickly the mister got down those Gangnam Style dance steps! He's still got it!

:-)

Oh, I know they enjoyed them. They especially enjoyed the help when a tree fell on the bee hives in the backyard on Christmas night. ;-) My friend is proud if her honey production. But I think roughing it for that long got the best of all of them.

Bet those moves he learned on the football field helped there.

Did I tell you about that, Kenny?!

I don't know that my husband learned those absurd dance steps on the footbell field, but this past fall he very much enjoyed practicing those moves on the field--in his referee uniform.

Our boy, sitting in the stands, was originally mortified. He seems to have gotten over it, though, and he and his dad made quite the well-choreographed pair last night!

Randy and Biz, lest I hijack this thread completely, let me add that I, too, really appreciate getting to visit here. As you can tell, I don't get out much :-)

I meant the added stamina to keep up with 16 year olds. All that exercise on the field obviously paid off.