Stroke of Midnight

Writing Prompt: Where were you last night when 2016 turned into 2017? Is that where you’d wanted to be?

Last night the family and I went to Moda Center to enjoy a sold out Portland Winterhawk's game.  Winter hawks is a WHL Hockey team, which is the closest to NHL we have in Oregon. The game was against our closet rival, Seattle, and it was a great game. Even though the Hawks lost 2-3 we still had a good time and  some really great seats. 

The Winterhawks also hosted an after-game New Year event inside the Moda Center complete with ice skating and bounce houses. Being the VIPs that we are, we were able to get on the ice right away and were able to skate the Moda Center's rink. Arthur completely loved ice skating. Marissa and I held each hand we managed to pull him around the rink until our feet throbbed with pain from the rental skates. Of course, this was not enough for Arthur as he was getting far too much attention from onlookers and sliding around the ice effortlessly, he did not want to stop. I took him for another round and we called it quits much to his chagrin and much more to the relief of my feet. 

After the rink we headed upstairs to the concourse and Arthur was introduced to a bounce house. Of course he was crazy about it. They wold let 6 kids on every 5 minutes and since it was already after 10:30pm there weren't many kids around. Arthur was able to go 3 successful rounds in a row without getting out... because he wouldn't get out and the kid running the bounce house was gracious enough to let him keep jumping. 

After driving home though the sleet we got comfortable just about 30mins before the ball dropped. With full bellies and full hearts we all just relaxed on the couch and flipped through the various NYE Specials. Most memorably, Pitbull's NYE special featuring: Snoop Dogg, and various other rappers much older than him including, Tone Lōc, (Not so) Young MC, Naughty by Nature, and Biz Markie. Of course we were all delighted to see Mariah Carey do whatever it is that she did. If your going to screw up lip synching your own music on NYE live TV... you better do it in a never nude suit... or would it be always nude or just nude? Its probably best that Rob Pilatus wasn't around last night to see that. 

We all rung in the New Year sighing at the continued presence of Jenny McCarthy, the extraordinarily bizarre everything of Fergie, and wonder of who decides to book these people. We sipped on Martinelli's and exchanged kisses. It tried so hard to snow outside but it only amounted to slush. I have a feeling that with warmth like we had snow wouldn't have stuck on our roof anyway. 

We have so much to look forward to this year and like most people we are glad we are finally here. Happy New Year and cheers to being exactly where you want to be.