Sunday, October 23, 2011

Partied Out

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were such insanely busy days that I'll probably have to write three different posts to cover them all.  But honestly I'll never get around to doing that, so let's just say that Thursday is forever lost.  Although I do have to at least mention real quick that Becky and Alana came over on Thursday night to work out with me, and that was a ton of fun.  We played "Just Dance" for an hour, and then negated our workout with cookies and wine.  Okay, so there, that was Thursday (not even close, really, but you don't want to read the ten page version, and parts of it include TMI anyway).

Friday was the Halloween party at the dojo.  It was a blast and I am definitely going again next year.  I was planning to take things slow that evening, but the very second we walked in, Sensei Brandon told us spin a colorful wheel to determine what drink we were going to start our evening out with.  He wouldn't take no for an answer, which was particularly funny since Clint doesn't drink, and more funny when we both hit the "double-shot" mark on the wheel.  After that, I never drank anything else, but I did have a few jello shots.  Okay, a few might have been like 12 or so.  I'm not sure.  I do remember Brandon asking me how many drinks I had, and I said "eight jello shots, maybe...I think?" and he yelled, "Clint, get your wife on the dance floor NOW!  She's too much of a light-weight to have that much alcohol in her system in only one hour!" and they dragged me out on the floor (even though I felt 100% fine) and made me dance so that I would burn off the alcohol (wow was that a run-on).  But every time I got off the floor for a quick break, I'd sneak another jello shot, so I'm not sure how effective their plan was.

Dancing that night was amazing.  The whole dance floor was shrouded in fog, and once you were in the midst of it, you sort of disappeared from the outside world.  It felt like being in Stephen King's "The Mist," minus the ferocious teeth-wielding monsters.  They also had this green laser light thing that I was absolutely enraptured by.  I can't explain it.  It was positioned to reflect from a giant mirror, and it threw out all of these beautiful green streaks and sparkles that made you feel like you were traveling through space.  Clint claims that I was brainwashed by that laser light (apparently I couldn't stay away from it, and I may have done an entire solo dance in front of it at one point in the evening, but it's not my fault that the lights made me feel like a superstar).  Oh, and Clint actually danced!  Not a whole bunch, but he did get out there a few times.

We have no pictures from the inside of the dojo, because the fog and black lights ruined any photograph we attempted to take.  Here are two cell phone pics that we took outside (they're terrible quality).  Because our family fun night theme is "carnival" this year, I was really limited on costume choices.  When I told Clint's mom I was dressing up as a clown, she said, "But you hate clowns."  I told her, "I know, so I'm just going to avoid mirrors."

Me and Sensei Brandon

Me and Clint (the personal trainer, haha!)

A former student's mom was the photographer at the party, and she took some great pictures the entire night.  If I can get my hands on some of those, I should have better pics to post later on.   

I ended up going to bed that night around 2:00 a.m., which was much earlier than I had expected.  I woke up at 6:40 the next morning, and the good news is that I didn't feel hung over at all.  The bad news is I think I might have still been a little drunk.  I got out of bed and just about fell over.  It passed quickly though, and I made it to our Community Clean Up Day right on schedule.  I spent the rest of the morning with my Builders Club students, picking up trash in the desert.  It was such a gorgeous day.  But that's a completely different topic, so I'll save it for my next entry. 

After Community Clean Up Day, we had to get the kids ready for their Halloween party.  The dojo does two parties in a row: the Friday night party for the adults, and the Saturday night party for the kids.  The kids' party had about 85 kids show up.  Insane.  Here are few pictures from last night: 


The kids lining up for the pinata


Clint holding the pinata*
(I hate it that I can't get the little ~ over the "n" on "pinata")


 Elijah punching the pinata with a giant hulk glove (except for you can't see him because the thing kept swinging in front of him every time I took a shot)


 Elijah participating in the mummy-wrapping contest


 Trin in the lead

 Trinity's team when they found out they had won the mummy contest


Elijah bobbing for apples

The party was actually a slumber party for kids eight years of age or older, so Trinity stayed the night and Clint chaperoned.  The irony of Clint chaperoning was almost too much for me to take.  Let's see...he doesn't like kids and he hates Halloween, but let's throw him in the dojo overnight with 45 costumed kids and see what happens!  It still makes me laugh so hard.  But since Clint is now a sensei there, it's expected that he takes on these kinds of responsibilities.  I have to admit that I was jealous as all get out that he got to chaperone.  Unfortunately Elijah is only seven years old, so one of us had to stay home with him.  At least Elijah and I were able to have fun at the regular party, but pulling an all-nighter with a bunch of crazy kids is definitely more MY kind of thing, and I felt left out.  Next year Elijah will be old enough to stay the night, so I am definitely planning to chaperone.  Once Elijah and I left the party, Clint said they had pillow fights, played some outdoor ninja game, and played hide-and-seek in the dark.  The sensei's made all of the kids go to bed by 3:00 a.m., and the account of how they separated boys from girls was pretty amusing.  Apparently they had all of the girls sleep on one side of the mat, all the boys on the other, with a row of ten black belts sleeping between the two.  You'd have to be feeling pretty ambitious to breach that border.

I will say that after two days of partying and a day of picking up trash, I am officially ready to veg on my couch and stare vacantly at the TV for a few hours.  

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