New Year's Eve South of the Cities

Ok, so it's my first New Year's Eve outside of St. Cloud that I can remember. I figured it'd be low key, some burgers, fries done up right via Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Frites recipe and a fabulous Cool Daddy fry appliance.

Around 2 minutes after midnight, and refusing to watch any of the countdowns on TV, I hear this loud shooting sound outside the balcony door. It sounded like the 4th of July, not the gunshots mom warned me about when I moved down here.

So wide-eyed and giddy I headed out to the balcony with the dog and my Slayer hat and watched the fireworks behind one of the apartment complex buildings. It was cold and beautiful...

I can't scrape the cheesy goodness off of that one. It is what it is. I lived in the same town for 28 years, so this was special considering this is my first year venturing out of that town.

Aside from the cheesy crap, there were these kids running around outside with goose & duck calling reeds, yelling "Happy New Years!!!!" It was especially funny when a cop drove by and you could hear one kid yelling, "that was a cop!" Sometime during all of this, others from nearby apartments were hooting and hollering re: the Happy New Year.

It was all very funny and entertaining - good enough to make this quiet New Year's "party" at the apt. worth something. Surely not as cool as Jen's party, but not nearly as lame as I anticipated. I heart the southern 'burbs, yo.