New Year's Day!

We headed out to Birch Bay on New Year's Day for the Jones Family Polar Bear Swim and we ended up missing it! AUGH!!!! We got stuck in the loooooooong line of cars along the water and pulled in about 10 minutes late. I think Tom was secretly a little relieved that he didn't have to go in and we headed straight to the pool to SWIM!

Go Kristie!
But good ol' D-Rex couldn't let Tom miss a year and said he would GO BACK IN with Tom! And sweet, sweet Julie somehow got conned into coming along too. What a family we have!
Tom felt like he had to make up for missing the first dip so they made sure to REALLY get wet!
And Uncle Tom said Vince needed to go in to for the "official count"!My cousin Alison got the Bellingham Herald to cover our special Jones Family Polar Bear Swim . . . we really are famous now!

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/01/01/2332786/jones-family-makes-new-years-special.html

And LOTS more pictures here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/01/01/2332724/jones-family-polar-bear-plunge.html

We went to Russ and Angie's that night for more partying!

Aunt Karen made the all-time-gutsiest-BEST move EVER while we were playing Rook!
I am FINALLY caught up with all the holiday festivities . . . I think the reason I put it off so long is because right after everything is over, I always feel a little sad about going back to everyday normal life (no family get togethers or parties every other day!) Now that I have had a month or more distance since all the fun, I can look back without feeling sad and really appreciate how incredibly lucky we are to have such close families who really LOVE being together.