31 Dec 2004 - New Year's Eve
We partied-in the new year at Steph and Brad's place. Jon, Sergio, Micah, Chris, Katy, Sarah, Ryan, Alan, Lorraine, and Sam were in from out of town.
Jon was the man of the hour. A few months ago his condo burned down. (see Chris's photos of the fire) This is really awful, and even happens to nice people like Jon. So we rigged this year's gift exchange so that we all got him. Everyone chipped in $50 for a total of $1050, but what to do with the money? This set of photos details how we passed it on to him. The whole thing was a big surprise which was great as a lot of people almost let the secret slip out over the last few weeks.
Jon later told us he'll use it to buy a stove when it comes time to furnish his (new and improved) condo. The plan is that we'll all come over to sign the side of it. (woo hoo - party at Jon's place!)
01 Jan 2005 - New Year's Day
There are a few photos from the next day at our place. A big thanks to Alan and Lorraine for bringing the pasta sauce and the chicken which we roasted-up. (mmm... roast pasta sauce... er...) Another big thanks to Warren and Charlene for bringing over the pork tenderloin in puff pastry. It was superb. As usual we managed to have too much food (despite completely ad-libbing an unplanned meal for 14). So it was a big success. :-)
02 Jan 2005 - Sunday Brunch
We had brunch at Warren and Charlene's place. (mmm... Warren coffee...) We played Scrabble, competed at cutthroat top spinning, and generally had a tasty, relaxing time. Afterwards the Montreal/Eastern Ontario contingent (except Micah) got in their respective cars and headed out into a long drive ending with nasty freezing rain. But everyone got home safely, so all is well.
It was a great weekend. From the emails circulating over the last few days it seems that everyone had a really fun time. We should do this sort of thing more often! (minus the burning of Jon's place, of course.) But the REST of it was good.
Oh, and here are the photos.
There are 72 pictures, trimmed down from 228. I don't claim any as high art, but I think they do a fun job of capturing the moments. (that's a disclaimer or sorts, you see...) As always, keep in mind: These are the good ones, the bad ones have already been deleted. <grin>
--- Doug (6 Jan 2005)