Camping Indoors.

We were supposed to go real camping this weekend for Ariana's birthday but the forecast for where we were going went a little like this...Cold. Rain. Snow. More Cold and uhhh. rain.  

Soooo Liz and I decided that we were going to go all out and do an indoor camping party.  And when I mean all out, I mean all out.  Sure, we didn't have a real fire, but I had an app for campfire noises and other nature things.  I mean, it was pretty close to real camping.  The tent smelt like camping too so what more could you ask for? haha. Cole put 100 glow and the dark stars on my vaulted ceiling and Liz and I did this... 

You know it's a big deal when you have to take off your bedroom door just so you can move the furniture out of the living room.  I was honestly surprised at how large my living room looked without all the furniture.  [I kind of didn't want to move it all back in once the party was over but I guess we need places to sit and such.]


Liz, Vicky and I painted the animals on Wednesday night and told Ariana they were for her mom's "class."  She believed us.  haha. We just wanted it all to be a surprise, which, I think it was!

I had already taken Friday off for Camping so Liz and I started at about noon with the decor and party stuff.  Yes, we are hardcore.  The best part was going to this school supply/"Map World" place and buying the  "self serve" butcher paper.  It took us a good half hour or so to roll up the 42 yards of paper.  Don't tell Map World, but It think we ended up with a yard or two extra.  I mean, get real.  We were laughing or talking while rolling it all up and lost count a little.  Even though we did them in 4 yard rolls, we still lost count.  Yes, we're a little special. 


It really turned out just as good, if not better than what we had pictured it to look like! I'd say we are the ultimate party planners. It only took us like....5 hours or so to get it all together.  Sounds like a lot but we had a ton of fun doing it!  The worst part was seeing that 5 hours of work to put up only took about 15 minutes to completely clean up and put the furniture back together again.  Totally worth it though.


All decoration and party planning awesomeness aside, the actual party itself was fun.  I think it's safe to say that we are all a little crazy.  If you would have told me a year ago that certain people in our group would turn out to be even half as crazy as me I would have laughed in your face.  But now...haha.


We had games, eating, dancing, drinking stuff that's not meant to be mixed or swallowed, more "dancing," lots of laughing, many "OH MY GOSH" and WTH moments, indoor star gazing, and of course some pretty hilarious dares that some people will never live down.  Trust me.  Some of which I'm grateful for because they totally will make people forget about some things that certain people told me I would never live down.  Haha. After Friday night? psh. yeah right.  


Not everyone stayed the night but I'm so glad that pretty much everyone came and stayed up pretty late and had fun!  A few of us even went on a late night walk at like 2:30 or something.. which is a pretty normal night for Nieko and I, but do you know how many people are out and about at that time?  We actually ran into a few and it kind of creeped me out but then I remembered that we were also at that time so it's like...uh, maybe they're cool too? Hmmm.  well..

Dear Main Street,
Thank you for the late night entertainment. I'm sorry for the thing [W] used as a punching bag and broke.  I'm sorry that [N] wanted to steal it and put it in my apartment.  I'm also sorry for saying that the only reason why I didn't want them to steal it was purely because it was super ugly and I didn't want it to become decor in my apartment.  What I'm not sorry for, though?  Spotting that large rock that looked like the face of the Dark Lord [AKA, Voldemort] and almost getting an "object crush" on it, not because of what it was but because of how awesome I guess I thought it was in the moment, and then letting [N] take it and place it on top of the apartment complex sign. Oh, and then waking up this morning for a Sunday walk and maybe getting a little emotional but then walking back into the complex and seeing this and getting a really good laugh:

 Life without ridiculous funny moments like this ^^^.. wouldn't be living at all.

I'm not sure what time we actually went to bed but my kind of camping totally includes all of the fun of it but then getting to sleep in my nice comfy bed.  Sorry to all the people, AKA Easton who woke up with a back ache and to the ones who barely got any sleep for..other reasons.  Um.. You wanted to camp so I gave you "camping" haha. 

AFTER breakfast most of us took another nap.

Easton trying to pull a prank to make Liz pee her pants.. haha. SO didn't work.

We finished off Ariana's Birthday by stopping by and looking at all the dog that are up for adoption. omg, I wanted to get them all and give them a home.  Ok, all except for that one poodle who almost took Cole's finger off. nightmare.  And then we decided to go see Titanic 3D.  Yes, we saw it on April 14th--Exactly 100 years since the sinking. We're awesome.  I know I've seen that movie probably a billion times but it still gets me every time.  There's just something about seeing it on big screen!  Thank you James Cameron and of course, Leonardo Decap:)

Well, thanks to everyone for the fun. To Liz for spending a full 24 hours with me and pulling off the most awesome birthday party yet.  To Ariana for being born and giving us a reason to party and celebrate being alive.  And to the last weekend that we will ALL be together for a while...We keep it real!