Oh, how times have changed

New Year's Eve used to be a crazy night for me....in my former life. My girls and I used to party our asses off at some club in NYC that charged us way too much money for entry and open bar. Sure, we knew it was all a little ridiculous to spend that much money just to go out, but it was New Year's Eve, and we didn't care how much it costed us.

Last year, Ryan and I went out to a romantic dinner and we were home before midnight and I had fallen asleep on the sofa before the ball dropped. This year, I vowed to not be alseep when the New Year hit.

Last night, Ryan and I went to our favorite restaurant for a late dinner...I made sure not to go to dinner until 10:30pm because I knew if I went any earlier, I would simply repeat what happened last year. At 11:55 we walked out to the restaurant's balcony to watch the fireworks show over Waikiki Beach. We took some pics, kissed at midnight and had one more drink before we left. As we were leaving the restaurant, the manager was throwing away a huge bundle of balloons -- Ryan asked if we could take them with us......

So here we are, 12:30am, just Ryan and I, and a huge ass bundle of balloons. We walked out on the packed streets of Waikiki and passed out balloons to all the drunken people celebrating the New Year. People were SO excited for a balloon. People were running up to us asking us for balloons. I was cracking up at Ryan, he looked like the balloon man from the carnival.

With just a few balloons left, Ryan and I jumped into a cab and headed home. It was definitely a quiet, low-key night for us. It wasn't crazy like the old days, but we had fun and we were together, and that's all that matters. We did realize one thing though as we were on our way home in the cab -- we should have charged people $1 for those damn balloons!