It was great to get back to see all of our family in Kentucky.  We shuffled between Jinni's parents in Bowling Green and my family who all gathered at brother Keith's house in Louisville.

Between family gatherings we spent one night at 'the cabin' outside of Bowling Green.  The property belongs to some dear friends of ours.  It is a wondrous place where Jinni and I got married and which holds more joint memories for us than you can possibly imagine. 

While there, we did what any self-respecting Kentuckian does.  We dusted off the clay pigeons and the shotguns.

I posted the picture of Josie shooting because she whooped up on all of us with a deadly aim as we went though nearly 300 shells.  She went six for six during one stretch.  It was the first time Jesse was big enough to handle the gun but he still enjoyed waiting for the "pull" command.  Jinni and Jack are watching in awe of Josie's shotgun prowess.

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Update: Just so's there is no confusion here, we did not allow alcohol at Jack's party, but predictably, some did show up.  When we discovered it, we poured it out just as I stated in the post.  While we strive to be 'the cool parents', we don't strive to be stupid parents.

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We rolled back into town New Year's Eve.  During the 9 hours it took to return from Kentucky, son Jackson was burning up the telephone inviting a 'few' friends over for a New Year's party that we agreed to let him host.  "How many did you invite?", I asked as we were unloading the van.  "Oh, I don't know... 10 or 12 I guess", was his reply.  But he and I both knew that cell phones were firing up all over Greensboro with the news, "Party at the Hoggard's"

I took a quick guesstimate right before midnight and there were at least 80 high schoolers gathered around various televisions getting ready to watch the ball fall in Times Square.

I spent much of the evening pouring out cans of beer and other adult beverages as I snatched them from any kid who was bold enough to not even make an attempt to conceal their illegal imbibements, many of whom we have known since they were snotty-nosed kindergartners.  It was not a totally unexpected development that kids that age are testing their party legs, I was sixteen once, too, you see, so I was hip to all of their tricks.  The other thing we did was confiscate around 25 sets of car keys as carloads of revelers came through the door.  A few of them balked when I told them they would have to hand them over and come see me when they were ready to leave.  "But I don't drink", they would protest.  "Well then you'll get them back without a problem... this is not an optional request", I answered.  Four (correction:Two) of Jack's friends spent the night because they couldn't pass my key return tests.  But overall, they were a great bunch of kids and pretty much cleared out by our 2:00a shut down time.

I understand about all of the liabilities involved with hosting such a party, but I would much rather have them all here than elsewhere.  Several of them even showed up yesterday to help Jackson clean up.

Happy New Year everyone.

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