New Year's Eve 2007

I hope that everyone had a safe and happy New Year's Eve. We loaded up the kids (Ashley and Tony) along with a few of their friends and headed to Old Sacramento for the fireworks and festivites. It was quite an experience. First we got to Old Sac about 8:30pm and headed to Round Table for some pizza....OMG, I have never seen any place so packed before! We paid for the buffet and proceeded to stalk tables until one opened up....and then we tried to cram all 7 of us into a little booth (wish I had thought to get a picture of that!!) It was amazing all the different types of people out in Old Sacramento...from the families like us, to the drunk young adults to the (insert your choice of word here) counting quarters to get enough money for a pitcher of beer and 2 dinner buffets for all 10 of them to share! Nice!! Here is a picture of how excited DH was to be standing in line for the pizza....Ashley, however, wasn't too terribly concerned about the lines...

All in all it was a pleasant evening....although a little boring if you weren't one of the drunk idiots roaming the street. After we finished eating we had about 2 1/2 hours before fireworks so we walked all around the town basically people watching. This picture was taken when everyone was gathered at the river for the fireworks....prior to that the street was wall to wall people.While walking around we were able to watch some firedancers.....
And finally it was time for the fireworks that started at the stroke of midnight.....Here are the boys watching the fireworks....And here are DH and I.....

Our ride home was uneventful.....guess it was still too early for all the crazy people to be out driving, thank goodness. However.....our own street was another story. A sad story actually....but thankfully not as tragic as it could have been. We could hear yelling down the street (but to be honest I didn't think too much of it, after all it was New Years!)....Ashley's friend happened to be heading home and he came back to tell us to call the police. The yelling was a woman....she was yelling at her husband not to drive, she was even beating on the car and trying to get in the way. He was extremely drunk. His son came out and was begging him not to drive (he's maybe 8).....the dad proceeded to smack the kid and get in the car and drive away. He almost took out a parked car and then about went into a house. By the time I got outside he was gone.....but his son came running down the street completely barefoot (it was maybe 30 degrees) and only wearing light weight pjs, trying to catch his dad. I asked him what he was doing or where he was going and he said he had to get his dad...that he was drunk and driving. I don't know how this little boy thought he could catch up to a car but he was giving it everything he had, all he knew was that he had to somehow stop his dad from driving. My son and Ashley's friend took off after the little boy....thankfully the mother finally pulled up with her car to get her son. When he got in the car he was crying and saying that he hated his life and why does this always have to happen. OMG....it broke my heart!!! I wish his sober dad could have heard the words his little boy was saying. I don't know what ever happened....my son had called the police and even though we didn't know which house the family lived in the cops pulled right up to it, either the mom called too or this has happened before. How sad.....not to mention what a jerk the man is, not only for what he did to his family but for the danger he put everyone else in when he decided to drive drunk!