Game Night officially a success!

I'm so happy that I'm able to communicate through typing because I don't have much of a voice right now. No, I'm not coming down with a cold. Actually, I'm hoarse from screaming and yelling during our game night extravaganza. It literally just ended about 20 minutes ago and I had so much fun I wanted to share about it right away. Let's rewind and recap...

This morning I was determined to let myself wake up without using an alarm. I always hope that means my body will sleep until Noon like it did in college. But, instead I typically start becoming aware of sounds, the temperature in the room, the birds chirping outside, and my need to use the restroom by 930am. This morning I actually slept until about 1015am. Once up, I made a list of ALL the things I needed to do to be ready for guests at 5pm. I had several errands to run before cleaning the house. You're probably wondering why I didn't do some of this before today. Well, yesterday was our last day of school for the semester. So, I wanted to have a 100% restful day without any chores (NOT something I have often, if ever!). Anywho, I realized that this would be my first time showing our new home to some of our friends, so I wanted to finish hanging all the pictures and curtains and fill out a few of the empty spaces. With that in mind, I needed a few odds and ends from a variety of stores. After 3 hours of driving all over the DC metro area, I'd acquired picture hanging hooks, nice sheer curtain panels, a suede armless chair for our bedroom, a few frames for hanging our degrees, and I even managed to put my Christmas cards in the mail.

(Can I just say that my trip to get this beautiful armless chair for our bedroom from a Craiglist seller led me on a 1 hour trip to downtown DC, including a trip down a dead end alley way in which I was sure I'd get mugged, several wrong turns, bumper to bumper traffic, and being honked at very rudely for not driving fast enough!) Although, it was quite a scenic trip as it was my first time driving in the city.

Once I arrived back home I realized that I had more things on my list and very little time to get it done. I decided to take off manicure and just allow my nails to exist in desperate need of a refill! I began hanging frames in the office, adding the sheer panels to our bedroom and putting the new chair in place. Finally, my house feels complete! (For the most part. There are still some spaces I'd like to better fill.) I breathed a sigh of relief. My husband vacuumed and took out the trash as I hung photos, so we were all ready for company. Then, I realized it was 15 minutes until guests were to arrive and I hadn't showered, tweezed my eyebrows, or done my hair. YIKES! (I feel like this happens to me a lot.) As the first few guests trickled in, I snuck into our bathroom to shower and wash my hair. No time to style it so I let it flow naturally. Now my hair is a HUGE curly mess. (still cute, though.) I greeted guests for about the first hour. Things were a little odd at first because there weren't enough chairs for anyone. However, when we jumped into games, that no longer mattered. We spread out, as hoped, in 3 different rooms. Cranium in the sun room (on a coffee table); Clue and Fact-or-Crap in the living room; and Monopoly and Texas Hold 'Em in the dining room. Worked beautifully. All in all there were 17 human beings + 1 very cute dog at our party. We fit well.

I played Cranium with Carrie (fellow Marine wife), Danielle (friend from college), Nikki (friend from college), Deborah (teacher at my school), and Deb's husband Nick. There were 5 folks on the Clue / Fact-or-Crap station and the Marines gravitated to the monopoly / poker area. (Imagine that!) Let me just say if you haven't ever played Cranium, go buy and play it with friends asap. Its a hilarious good time and the single reason I am voiceless right now! First of all, it's very competitive and you play on teams. So, my partner and I were trying to beat the other teams. There's a race against the timer involved which heightens the excitement. We did it all: from dancing like James Brown, imitating Martha Stewart and, drawing pictures blindfolded to pondering the Berlin Wall, humming the words to Michael Jackson jams, and acting out Scuba Steve (so I thought)...we truly did it all!

After Cranium, people began to leave but a good number stayed and we played a round of Battle of the Sexes (girls against guys). We learned a lot: from the year that Porsche's stopped using air intake to cool their engine, to the official name of a hammer (claw hammer)...we covered it all! Now, we did stump the guys a few times with questions such as, how you stop a run in pantyhose and naming a film Audrey Hepburn played in. In the end, the girls won! (It was close though. The guys did well.)

Such a blast. We cannot wait to host another game night. I neglected to take photos! So so sorry. It was so incredibly fun. : ) Michael and I enjoyed playing host.