Happy Twenty-Ten, so far this year has started off with a bang!  For New Years my boyfriend, his sister, her husband and I all went to Catalina Island to celebrate.  We left on Wednesday and rented a hotel with the room twice the size of my apartment, or maybe three times the size – it was huge!  It was more like the size of a huge one bedroom apartment, but mainly open, with a small kitchen and a large bathroom (the bathroom was larger than the kitchen).  Did I mention that the beds were king size?  It was like I woke up in another world.  We are used to my tiny full size bed, so moving up to a king was nice, comfortable, and slightly colder (without my boyfriend’s body heat so close to me, I actually got cold in the middle of the night).

The first day we arrived it was pretty rainy, yet we still managed to have a blast.  Neither one of us had been to Catalina before, so after we dropped off our luggage in our huge room, we decided to take a walk around to check out bars and restaurants to figure out which would be perfect to celebrate New Year’s Eve.  As we were walking along we went in a few shops and checked out their clothing, I saw a cute pair of red shoes (with a flower on the toe) that I wanted, but decided they might be a little pricey.  We ran in about ten different restaurants and bars to see if they were having a party or celebrating at all for New Years, nothing was really calling our name.  We stopped to grab some food at the Lobster Shack (mainly because we knew they had a pool table and what better to waste time on a rainy day than a pool table).  After we ordered our food, my boyfriend took right to the pool table as his sister ordered us a shot of Patron – wow that shot is strong!  I do not usually drink, so one shot of that and I was feeling a little buzzed.   

On our way back to our hotel we noticed this awesome restaurant with a New Years Mardi Gras theme and karaoke – we got our reservations, stopped at a few more shops and headed back to our hotel.  We had a few hours to kill before our “Ghost Tour” so we all decided to take a nap. I, as always woke everyone up just in time to freshen up and head over to the Casino for our tour.  Our tour guide gave us a hand held ghost detector, which of course did not work, but was fun to play with anyway (everyone who had one would go up to random people to check to make sure they were not ghosts – it was hilarious).  On our way through the tour she had told us several stories of people who “may have” come in contact with specific ghosts of people from the town that had died.  She then let us stop at a few places to take photos where “orbs” of ghosts usually show up.  My boyfriend and I got a few pictures with orbs; most people did not, so everyone was checking out our camera and photos.  An hour later the tour ended, we were starving so we all headed to the last place that was still open – a pizza joint where they give you peanuts as appetizers and expect, or demand, that you throw the shells on the floor.

The next morning we woke up to sun and warmer weather.  My boyfriend was dying to check out the golf cart tour, so we found a place that rented carts at a decent price ($40/3 hours if you are active military – most places charge $80/2 hours).  We took our cart everywhere we could without getting fined, including the places that we weren’t supposed to go (btw – everyone on the island drives golf carts or super mini versions of cars, trucks and vans, it’s crazy).  My boyfriend drove the whole time and he, being the way that he is, was driving over tree stumps, through huge puddles and over every single bump he could find.  He even chased after three kids on bikes (our cart went about 20 mph) – don’t worry, they were laughing and having fun (although it freaked me out a bit, but only because I am the protective mother type).  Three hours later, we took our cart back, sad when we realized we had missed a section of the island and our time was up.  My boyfriend’s sister went to find some cute new clothes while he and I headed back to the hotel to relax before our big New Years celebration (after of course stopping in the drug store to buy party glasses, crazy jewelry, wigs and confetti for the evening).  Since our reservation was at 7pm we did not have much time to relax before we left so as everyone slept I got ready and woke them all up an hour before go time. We got all decked out in our cool new party gear and headed to our fab/fun Mardi Gras themed restaurant/bar. We ordered the New Years special which was a three course meal, not as good as I had hoped, but still good and messed around until the party started at 9pm.  My boyfriend, his sister and I were one of the first people to go up and sing karaoke, we sang Third Eye Blind’s, Jumper.  We laughed almost the whole way through it, but I think most people were already wasted by that time that no one really noticed. 

As the clock struck midnight, we had our New Years kiss, paid our bill (which btw- they tried to rip us off by $50, and even though Jason was wasted, I wasn’t, he still caught it), and headed back to our hotel.  My boyfriend tried to “rescue” a woman on the ground who had gotten sick, but her boyfriend or husband was having no part of it at all, he got really mad at my boyfriend as I quickly whisked his drunk a** back to our hotel.  Our party was exhausted and we had to leave at 7am the next morning to head back to Los Angeles.   It was a New Years I will never forget!