Hello, 2013!

Happy 2013!

Happy New Year, all! I hope you all had a great couple of days as we all said goodbye to 2012 and welcomed 2013 with open arms.

We had a wonderful New Year celebration, beginning with some family-friendly fun on New Year's Eve at First Night in Downtown St. Pete. My dad was singing there with his choir and suggested we check out all the festivities. We made our way downtown around 6:00 that night, bought our oh-so-festive flashing First Night buttons, and started wandering around. It was an absolutely gorgeous night - a far cry from our old NYC New Year's Eves!

We made our way to Baywalk first, where there were all sorts of things going on. Our first stop was the Musical Petting Zoo hosted by the Second Time Arounders Marching Band. In this room, you could choose any instrument you've ever wanted to try to play and they would show you what to do to take a shot at it. Eric tried his hand at some brass: trombone and tuba. I think he missed his calling.

He looks like a natural.

Ellie watching her daddy play the tuba

Next, we stopped to make party hats out of paper bags and random craft supplies scattered about in the very crowded, very warm Hat Making Room. Eric declined a hat (party pooper) but Ellie and I were looking quite festive by the time we left that sauna of a room.

Hard at work on Ellie's hat

Party hats!

These hats are funny.

Stunning, daaaahling.

We stuck around Baywalk for a few more minutes to watch the ballerinas performing on the stage, and to make a little musical shaker for Ellie at a booth promoting baby music classes.

Dancers at Baywalk

From there we walked over to Straub Park to see what was going on. Among other things, there was miniature golf set up at the Museum of Fine Arts, a tree-climbing activity where you could climb a rope up one of the old banyan trees and a place to ice skate, although it looked like the rink was just glorified plywood so I'm not sure I'm buying that.

Climbing the banyan trees

Ice skating?

There was also a rather large birthday cake, where you could write a wish or resolution for 2013 onto a scrap of fabric and tie it to the cake. We were told they would be lighting it on fire closer to midnight, but naturally, we had long since gone home by that point. Regardless, all three of us tied wishes to the cake.

At the giant birthday cake

After we walked around a bit, my dad met up with us for a while before he had to return to the church to rehearse with his choir for their evening performance. First things first, Ellie really wanted to show her Grandpa her new party hat.

Grandpa, do you believe what Mom keeps making me put on my head?!

We then walked over to a luminary labyrinth they had set up. You just followed the luminaries through a winding circle until you reached the tree in the middle, where once again you made a wish for the new year and tied a ribbon to the tree.

Labyrinth

The wishing tree

Ellie tying on her wish

At that point my dad had to run off to rehearsal, so we took a few quick family pictures and then said goodbye to him.

With my dad

Our family

We briefly considered trying to stick it out until 9:00 for fireworks and my dad's performance immediately following, but we had a pretty sleepy little girl on our hands so we just called it a night and headed home.

Back at home, you know we had to take a couple more pictures and have a little noisemaker fun before putting little Ellie to bed.

New Year's Eve party time!

Happy New Year from the W. family!

After we said goodnight to Ellie and wished her a happy new year, we made ourselves a yummy dinner and then settled in with Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, a bottle of champagne apiece and crazy straws through which to drink it.

Yum. Dinner.

Champagne time!

My dad got home just in time to join us for the countdown at midnight.

Happy New Year!

As usual, we watched that ball drop and I was taken back to our Times Square New Year's Eve experience in 2008-09. I just love watching it so much now, and remembering the feelings associated with being in such an electric place at midnight. It was so horribly unpleasant but still so much fun, and one of my most favorite memories. As one might expect, it really made me miss New York.

If we're being honest, although NYC may be the place to be on New Year's Eve, Florida is not all that bad on New Year's Day. After our fun family New Year's Eve, on New Year's Day we decided to kick off 2013 in as Floridian a way as possible: with a late lunch/early dinner on the beach followed by a nice sunset stroll. The weather was absolutely divine, so this seemed like an excellent way to start the new year in our new home off right.

We went down to Pass-a-Grille beach and had lunch/dinner at the Hurricane. Ellie has been killing it at restaurants lately, so we have been taking advantage. Eric had a crab cake sandwich, I had a grouper sandwich, and Ellie had a ton of Puffs. Everybody was quite pleased.

The Hurricane

Shades.

This girl loves eating out these days!

Time to eat!

When we finished our meal, we walked over to the beach. We sat down and looked out at the beautiful Gulf for a bit, and Ellie explored the sand. She was a bit hesitant at first, but ultimately, she went for it. That's my Florida girl!

Enjoying a quiet, beachy evening with my baby girl (a far cry from Times Square, I must say!)

She may not look super enthused, but she definitely prefers the sand to snow!

A nice man and his wife came by as we were snapping pics of Ellie, and offered to take a couple shots of the three of us. Yay!

Our family relaxing on the beach 

That baby cracks me up.

Then Eric and Ellie spent some time playing, as they tend to do. Man, that baby LOVES being lifted up in the air.

Ellie and her daddy

Loves it. 

After all that playing, we did a little walking as the sun continued to make it's way toward the water.

Walking along the beach

Sunset fun with Ellie

We didn't stay long enough to see the sun actually dip down below the horizon, but we got a good enough taste of our first Florida sunset.

I predict we will see many more of these over the course of our time here.

 Not a bad way to spend an evening in January.

And that was how we rang in 2013. I feel like our celebration was a perfect representation of what our life is now: family fun and Florida sun. As I mentioned on New Year's Eve, our lives have changed so drastically in the last year, but not in a bad way. It's a whole new ballgame but we're so excited about the changes we are going through, and I feel this New Year's was the perfect celebration of our new life.

Here's to an incredible 2013 to come.