Ringing In the New Year

The Bradner Bunch celebrated the New Year's Holiday with our 2nd Annual trip to

"First Night State College."

The home town of Penn State University host a wonderful street fair with tons of family activities. A good time was had by all.

Marley and Ella are ringing one of the many bells at the central park. There was also an African drum circle, fire sculptures and kettle corn!

The 2008 Bradner family portrait on the Nittany Lion shrine! We are Penn State! Compare this to the photo at the top right corner of the webpage to see how we have changed in one year.

We enjoy taking this trip with our good friends, the Lyons family. Paul and Betsy are both PSU alumni and Penn State is where our friendships began. We each have countless memories from our college days and we absolutely love sharing them with all four of our children. The kids love going to the places we "used to go to all the time." Perhaps one or two of them will become PSU alumni one day.

We attended several craft workshops. Here is Xander making his 2008 badge.

Ella models her finished badge. Just like last year, I think the crafts are very nice and ones that you don't mind keeping around for some time.

Ella models her sun glass and scarf crafts too. Can anyone say Diva?

Live reindeer at the central park.

Marley and Kali take a ride on the ice luge! This was fun. Muddy, but very fun.

Ella goes next. Wheeeeeee!

There were so many events and activities to do, our children where fast asleep long before midnight. This was the scene in our hotel room about 10:00pm.
Betsy offered to watch the sleeping kids so Ray and I could go out on the town. We rang in 2008 while sitting at our once popular hangout, Zeno's. It was very nice to revisit a time familiar to when my husband and I started dating. This reminded me of why we fell in love in the first place. We counted our many blessing in 2007 and toasted to many more in the New Year.

I plan to post more photos from our State College trip, including Marley's ice skating performance! Check back soon.