2010 Slumber Party

I had such an amazing New Year's that words can't even describe how fun it was.  I'm still coming down from my New Year's high.

We spent New Year's Eve at a small get-together in the mountains at my sister's house.  We all agreed in advanced to stay the night, that way we didn't have to worry about driving off a mountain in the dark and possibly (eh-hem--probably) intoxicated.  The people there included: Shannon and Jeremy, Julie and Ryan (long-enduring friends from high school), "Little Shannon" (as we called her as kids because she's three years younger than us; our moms bartended together when we were young), Sarah, my dad, and of course me and Clint.  Shan's father-in-law, Frank, joined us this morning for some breakfast and Wii support, for lack of a better explanation.

When we first got to Shannon's house, we all hung out for awhile, eating yummy food and drinking these delicious lemon drop shots that my sister kept incorrectly making.  Soon after, about half of us started a game of Texas Hold em', which lasted for a few hours and was a terribly silly game because 90% of us were already feeling pretty loopy.  After poker, the kids had put together a karyoke concert for the adults, and given that they had created tickets for us and everything, we had to attend their concert.  At the end of the third number, we realized we only had fifty-some seconds left before the new year.  We all ran upstairs to the outdoor balcony in this blurry, chaotic frenzy, shoving pans and banging utensils into the kids' hands.  That was one of the most memorable moments for me; The count down.  I remember shouting "10!...9!...8!...." while feeling mesmerorized by the beautiful pine trees surrounding us, their tall statures illuminated by the bright blue moon (which, by the way, looked like an ordinary moon and wasn't even remotely "blue," but apparently it was special). 

After the countdown, we came in and started up a game of Cranium.  The molding clay was dried out and unusable, but luckily we were able to use my neice Samantha's "Floam" for our sculpting needs.  During Cranium, Shannon and Julie were partners, Little Shannon and Ryan, and me and Sarah.  With the exception of Julie, no one seemed to be taking the game very seriously, although we were really trying.  I learned that Little Shannon is an excellent sculpter, but Ryan is a terrible guesser.  At one point she had to sculpt "Humpty Dumpty," and you couldn't have asked for a better model egg sitting on a wall.  But he couldn't figure it out.  In the end, Julie and Shannon won the game, and me and Sarah were a very close second.  They were tough competitors.

After Cranium, a few people decided to go to bed (it was already 2:30 a.m.), while the rest of us stayed up to watch Hangover.  The movie has many raunchy scenes, which I don't normally care for in movies, but it was hysterically funny and I am already eager to watch it again.  I was laughing so hard that my sides were literally beginning to hurt.

We eventually went to bed and "sort of" slept.  I slept on the floor of the downstairs media room, which was surprisingly comfortable (the carpet is thick and soft).  I think I would have slept pretty good, except for Samantha had a tooth-ache and kept waking me up.  Also, Shannon's psychotic, overly dependent cat who happens to have attachment issues was staring at me in the middle of the night, and at one point was pawing my head. 

This morning I woke up to good smells wafting through the house.  Shannon and Jeremy had made everyone eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, and coffee for breakfast.  You would think that I would've walked upstairs to a group of bleary-eyed, hungover people, but everyone was talkative and in good spirits.  After breakfast we started playing Wii.  I don't remember much about this except for Frank kept shouting "Bubble!  Bubble!!" over and over.  After Wii, we plugged in Trin's karyoke machine to the upstairs T.V. and everyone enjoyed some "sober karyoke" (smashing your hands over your ears counts as "enjoying," right?).  For some crazy reason, even though we were all in our jammies and completely sleep-deprived, running on coffee fumes, this morning was just as fun as last night.  I didn't want to go home today.  I would have been perfectly content staying at Shan's house all day.

But of course, going home was an inevitability.  When we got home, we discovered that Moses was fenced in at our neighbor's house.  Our neighbors have eight kids, and four of them were outside playing with our dog.  It was quite the scene.  Our front yard was torn apart; our peppermint candy decorations were knocked over, our solar lights were torn out, and there were giant bear prints (okay, dog prints, but same diff with this dog!) going into our pond.  We found out right away from a different neighbor that Moses had busted out of the yard this morning and waited for hours in our front yard for Clint and I to come home.  This neighbor said that he thought that Moses was on a chain, because he was like a statue in the front yard, sitting there, refusing to budge.  He said that he had never seen anything quite like it and was very impressed by how disciplined our dog was, not to take off.  Of course, this was before Moses finally gave up on us and wreaked havoc in our yard.  All in all, there were three different sets of neighbors who played a role in trying to get our dog under control before the kids across the street finally housed him in their yard until we got home.  Alexis, the oldest, was so sweet.  She told me "We knew we had to keep Moses safe until you got home, because we know how much you love that dog."  Ever since Moses' antics, I have been showering him with affection.  He's asleep at my feet now, content that his family is home.  I guess next time I decide to leave for two days, I'll either have to take him with or get him a dog-sitter.

I guess I had better end this very long and rambly entry now.  Happy 2010!