[Marilyn]

We stayed home. We did have Karen & Carlton, Garrett & Melissa and Carlton's mom and nephew over. We had hot tamales, chili, chips and dips and played chicken foot dominoes. We all pooped out about 10:30 and Carlton's mom and nephew went home. The rest of us just sat around for a while. Carlton decided to go see a friend real quick who owed him some money, and took the guy joy riding in his car to show him what it could do. Carlton has a '99 Pontiac Formula (TransAm) that he's supped up, and that's what they traveled here in from California, against everyone's better judgment but his. Well, he had it up at 6800 RPM's and blew the transmission. A flywheel flew off and knocked the starter off the engine and cut the transmission line and created a fire ball that burned up all the wiring on the engine and blew a hole in the right fender. We got a call that he needed help at 15 minutes till midnight, so our New Year's rang in towing his car to our house. Karen was very upset. They were supposed to leave the next day to drive back to Cali, so we spent the wee hours of New Years online finding them plane tickets to fly home Sunday morning. We got up at 2 a.m. to drive them to Austin to catch the only flight available to Palm Springs that day.

Karen's stomach was upset, but we thought it was all the stress. Little did we know she was 2 months pregnant.

What a New Years!!! One to remember for sure!!!