Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu

is Japanese for "Happy New Year," though literally translated it means something like "Congratulations on the Opening". That makes sense, I think, in the sense that a new year is an opening, a chance to turn a page and start fresh. Not that I'm trying to introduce a long list of my resolutions here, because I honestly don't have any. I know better by now.
So this is how we spent our New Year's Eve, at Jason and Kristen's place helping them break in their new sofa. Actually, it's so big it's more like a SOFA. I would have to say that Aogu made the best contribution to the breaking-in effort by taking a two hour plus nap on one side of SOFA (I suppose since that looks like an acronym, I should think of some words to make it so?), but he was kind enough to wake up at 11:57 or so to wish us all a happy new year and snap this photo.
After all the energy we expended seeing in the new year, we had nothing left to drag ourselves home with. Besides, we knew that Jason really wanted to sleep on his new couch, so we allowed ourselves to be persuaded to take over Jason and Kristen's bed for an impromptu sleepover. Too bad we woke Izumi up and she had to sleep with us the rest of the night, thus insuring that I wasn't sleeping....she must have been though, you can see here how perky she was the next day!
Koji and Ashleigh got out in the snow and played for at least an hour or so. Thanks to Kristen for rigging up snow clothes for him, as we hadn't brought any.

Our 24 hour visit to Jason and Kristen's was a low-key but still fabulous way to kick off 2008. Hmm. Now I've got myself thinking about resolutions, maybe I should make some after all...