Happy New Year 2020 TODAY!
As you saw last week, we have an annual Christmas photo tradition of us wearing the same bathing suit bottoms and sweatshirts out by a water shore (even in the snow)! We also have another tradition that we started out in California 6 New Years(…es?) ago in our temporary homes in California during our additional school degrees-!
Our first one started out with studio lighting and a backdrop (and thrift store mock turtlenecks):
And the following ones have all been our annual tradition of playing with big sparklers and some fireworks at a lake in Michigan on our private New Year’s Eves spent together with just the two of us! The first was when we lived in Michigan, but for the past 4 we’ve lived in Indiana and trekked up to Michigan to take a break (that also happens to be a national holiday) on New Year’s Day!
For Michigan sparklers and fireworks, we started with our normal winter clothes (vests that were gifts from a sister-in-law’s parents and Jenny’s parents)!
….then year 3 evolved into getting more creative with the sparklers and props…
….with year 4 including the best props (that we still use), fully glittery outfits (that don’t translate well in the darkness), colored lights, and more sparkler creativity!
….with year 5 including more glittery and shimmery clothing & Jenny’s dyed green hair (with of course sparkler fun)…
…and this year is year 6 of our New Year’s Eve tradition in 2020 of rainbow, glittery, and crazy clothing being even crazier in the new snow that fell in the past 24 hours-!
For the past 5 we’ve also included our pets in our celebrations! We keep the tv playing the ball drop countdown as our pets enjoy relaxing and getting treats! For our first one in Michigan 5 New Year’s Eves ago we had just gotten our elderly rescue cat Kevin weeks prior and he was thrilled that we were back from our annual Christmas trip across the country to see our immediate families in Arizona & Michigan! We’ve adopted 4 rescue furry pets in the past 4+ years and this year celebrated with our cat Kevin, dog Coco, & puppy Rizzo.
This year was a bit different in that we also had dinner bonfire style in the snow with Jenny’s cousin at their new house with John, his wife, her sister in from Canada, and later: his kids, his parents, & their friends! We made sure to head straight back to Michigan getting in about an hour before midnight to let our dogs out to play and potty in the snow, watch the ball drop, try on our Christmas gifts from Jason’s grandma & mom of light-up cat beanie hats & flannel onesie pajamas, and sitting relaxing on a large couch with all of our pets-!