Happy New Year!!

 

 

Omid & I went out to celebrate NYE last night for the first time in years. It was a lot of fun. Here are some of the evening's highlights.

 

I hope to update this post later with more photos. I only had my phone last night & am waiting on a friend to email 50+ photos of the evening.



After hydrating all day with water, we were ready to head out.
 

Kristi, Tammie, me & Lin


The first stop of the evening was to Lin & Ward's house where we were supposed to have a poker game (I even practiced all week). When we walked in, Ward's left wrist was wrapped with a thick towel & an ace bandage. An hour earlier, he had sliced open his wrist on a sharp gutter. We spent the next 45 minutes discussing over drinks & appetizers if we should cancel our dinner reservations & instead take Ward to the ER for stitches.

Ward decided against the ER & we headed into PDX for dinner. We did take an emergency kit with us in the car & decided to check Ward periodically to see if we needed to change plans & reroute to the ER. He seemed fine, so we headed to the restaurant. *Update!* Ward ended up getting stitches after all.

We had dinner at El Gaucho. This was the first time for Omid & I. We really like Morton's Steakhouse in Portland. I have to say, the dinner at El Gaucho was delicious, but I still prefer Mortons.

Omid's scotch had an ice cube that was shaped like a snowball. So funny.

 

Have you seen the $100 El Gaucho gift cards at Costco for only $79.99? That is way to go. El Gaucho is NOT inexpensive. The dinner tab for the 8 of us was over $1000.00! No joke!

We even brought our own wine & paid the $20 corkage fee, as we didn't want to pay the wine prices at the restaurant. We brought a 2007 Darioush Cabernet Sauvignon which we paid $80 for at the winery. The same wine (& a 2009 vintage) on El Gaucho's wine menu was $180!

Omid & I had the chateau briand for two.

The restaurant gave us hats to wear for the evening.☺

Best buds!

Happy New Year!

A few minutes before midnight, waiters passed out champagne & noisemakers.
Omid had the countdown going on his phone & we all counted down to 2013.
At midnight, our table was all hugs & kisses.

After dinner, we drove to Kell's Irish Pub. The cover charged dropped from $25 to $10 after midnight. They had two bands playing. Upstairs was Exotic City, a Prince 'cover band.' They were pretty good. The crowd here was very young 20 somethings.

Ward, Lin & I with some members of the band after their show.
Very friendly people.☺

Lin, Ward, Omid & I stayed to watch this band, while the other half of our party went to watch the band Coming Up Threes. They are an Irish folk band. They were very good! We joined our friends & had a great time dancing to this band. Their very last song was a hip hop song from the 80s with a distinctly Irish flair to it. That song must have gone on for 15 minutes. The crowd loved it!

Omid & I took a much needed water break & stood off to the side. Right when we did, two bouncers had a guy by the collar and literally threw him out the back door! Wow! I tried to get a photo, but missed. So exciting!

The band stopped playing at around 2:15 a.m. & we finished our beers & water. Omid snapped this shot of the floor. Those are mostly discarded noisemakers.

We finally left Kell's at 2:30 a.m. & I think it's safe to say that most of the scary people come out at that time. We witnessed a fight on the way to the car, and several obscenity screaming mad (or drunk) people. Ward dj'd 80s music for us on the way home while Lin was our designated driver. We had a super fun sing-a-long for the ride home.

I can honestly say, this was the most fun I've had on a NYE.