New Year

It was not my intent to wait two weeks before posting about the New Year. I started off the new year with the revelation that my hard drive was full. So we've spent some of our spare time over the past few days, backing up and deleting a years worth of photos and documents. Thankfully we are now up and running with plenty of free space to tackle the upcoming year. Talk about starting off on a clean slate!
We celebrated the New Year in quite the low-key Gupton fashion. We're not big on hoopla if you haven't noticed by now. Anyway, we weren't planning on doing anything particularly special for the evening. But while my sweet husband was out running errands, he impulsively decided we needed to have a little bit of a celebration to mark the evening. So he braved the masses at HEB in the 'burbs to buy all kinds of greasy, unhealthy indulgences for us to consume. It was a funny way to ring in the new year, and it was a relief to note that we just don't have the tolerance for all of that kind of food that we did back in our spry college days...
The next morning was a bit cold and dreary...a perfect day in my opinion. After watching the Tournament of Roses Parade (I'm a bit of a televised parade fanatic), we decided to bundle up and take a nice, leisurely family walk through the park. There weren't too many people out and about except for the hoards of festive revelers braving the waters of Barton Springs pool to partake in the annual Polar Bear Swim. Apparently it was a free, come and go event throughout the day. I truly was surprised and royally entertained to see all of the diverse types of people showing up to hurl themselves into the spring fed pool. Our little fish of a two year old, of course wanted to get a closer look. I'd be lying if I didn't admit to at least considering tossing him for the perfect photo opp, but realized it would probably be frowned upon, despite his consent. So my better judgement won out, and we continued on our merry way down the trail a bit more. Once we reached the pedestrian bridge and gawked at all of the turtles and fish, it was time to head home to eat our black eyed peas, okra, tomatoes and cornbread. I couldn't think of a better, more relaxing, way to start the new year if I tried.

Ringing in the New Year