Camping Party

Tessa's birthday was last Sunday, but we postponed her friend party until this weekend.  It turned out better since 3 of the 4 friends that she was inviting were out of town last week, not to mention Tessa being sick.  Anyway, it turned out to be a great party.  She picked a camping theme.  It all started last night around 5:30 with water balloons.  I told Jesikah to go start the water balloons games and I would be out in a few minutes.  She said that instead of playing the games, they just started throwing them at each other and it was all done in about 5 minutes.  So, I missed getting any pictures of it.  The girls and Jarem filled all these balloons up, and it took them probably 1-2 hours. :)

After the balloons, they just hung out outside and played tag, hide-and-seek, and other games

In the meantime, Eric built the fire.  Alex and his friend, Derek dug a little fire pit for us.

Here are the 6 party girls.  We grilled some hot dogs and had chips and watermelon

For dessert, we had to have dirt dessert.  One of the girls was a little nervous about trying it, but they ended up all loving it.

Then we sat around the fire, roasted marshmallows, and made smores

After the smores, I passed out glow bracelets and glowsticks and the girls had fun playing outside in the dark and catching fireflies.

When the glowsticks lost their light, they all came in and watched "Yogi Bear".  After the movie, everyone settled into the tent for the night.

This is a picture that I took early this morning of the tents and campfire area

The girls sleeping in the tent

Jarem and I slept in a tent together

Alex was assigned to set up the tents.  Unfortunately, he set up the two small tents which would not fit all the girls.  They were only for 2 people each.  So, Eric got home from work and set up the big tent.  That fit the 6 of them perfectly.  Jarem and I slept out there too in one of the 2-man tents.  Eric got me set up with the best air mattress and sleeping bag.  It really wasn't too bad, and Jarem was happy to get to sleep outside too.  The girls were great.  They all went to sleep before midnight and no one woke up until morning.  Around 6:50am, I was getting hot and ready to get out of there, so I came inside.  Within the hour, the girls all woke up and we had a breakfast of pancakes.

All in all, I think it was a fun party, and just Tessa's type of thing.  The girls were great together and got along and were very polite and helpful.  They were an easy-going group that were content to just entertain themselves.  Tessa said she really enjoyed it except when she landed wrong on her foot last night while running and hurt her ankle.  She was wearing dressy shoes with heel to play tag????  Anyway, I asked her why and she said that they were the quickest to slip on and her tennis shoes took too long to tie.  Our backyard is not very level and has a lot of bumps and ruts in it.  I think she will make a better choice next time, but it wasn't too bad and she still had a lot of fun with her friends.  I really appreciated them being so great about including Jarem, because he doesn't like to be left out.