Saturday Night Success

Even though it's past midnight, I'm still going to pretend it's Saturday. Tonight was our apartment's group date. The night went from stressful to successful. About 10 minutes before we were supposed to start, Manju's date bailed on her (he had something due at midnight and had failed to get it done earlier like he had promised). She told Rylee and me that she probably wouldn't be joining us tonight. We told her there was no way she was getting out of it and that we would find her a guy. Talk about stressful! We were scrambling around trying to find one on such short notice. I ended up asking a guy for her while she finished getting ready and Rylee and Ally went to pick up their guys (who live just down the stairs and a four doors down). By the time he changed his shirt and we got the apartment, Matt was already there. I felt bad that I wasn't there when he arrived. What a great start right?

We started off with a game of UNO while waiting for Brandon and Kristen (who had just gotten off work). The first round we played with the 7's rule (green=slap the ground {grass or our carpet, which is green}, red= hand on heart, yellow=hit forehead {yellow fever}, and blue=touch the sky) and individually. The second round Brandon and Kristen joined us. We still played with the 7's and instead we played as a team and each team picked a number. Every time our team's number was played, we would switch hands with the team that played that card. It was a lot of fun.

After UNO, we played Smurf. One person steps out and the rest come up with adverb/action, which is the Smurf. Then the person comes back in and has to guess the Smurf by asking questions. EX: The smurf is peeling an orange. Question: When was the last time you smurfed? You would answer with the last time you peeled an orange. Pretty simple and the questions and answers can get pretty interesting. One of our other Smurfs was: wearing a dress (funny when the guys admitted they had and told the stories behind it). The guys were so nice! They all went so the girls didn't have to stand outside while everyone decided on the Smurf inside (it's cold outside). Chivalry is not dead my friends. It also gave us a chance to avoid looking dumb if we were to take a long time guessing. All of us girls were very grateful.

The Jell-o followed Smurf. Originally we were going to take turns (as a team) slurping it through a straw and whoever had the fastest time would win. We ended up just making sculptures and other weird looking things with it. Some people had already started their fast for tomorrow. I totally forgot that it was Fast Sunday tomorrow {today}. Basically we just played with the Jell-o. It was fun, sticky, and messy.

We ended with a few short rounds of Boggle in our teams. Boggle may not sound that fun, but it was. Let's just say we had to break out the dictionary.

Before everyone left we made sure to take some pictures. Enjoy!

The Colorful Couples

Manju and Shawn=Purple

(Shawn was such a great sport tonight and he was a great match with Manju)

Brandon and Kristen=Blue

John and Ally=Red

Rylee and James=Yellow

Matt and I=Green

(Wouldn't have it any other way and the green sticking out of my head is from a bow.)

Okay, I just have to say Matt is awesome. Last night I texted him asking if he had his green shirt ready for tonight. He texted, "Yeah, I just bought it today haha." He went out and bought a new shirt! I thought he would've had one already, most guys do. He didn't have to go along with the whole colored shirt idea, but he did. How nice is he?

It got a little funny and awkward when we were done because we walked our dates home. Since they all live downstairs and pretty much next to each other (Shawn is in #5, Matt is in #6, and James & John live in #8) it was a little awkward walking all together. John was nice and walked Ally home since she lives in the complex next to ours. I had a great time and Matt did too. It was nice to see more of his fun side. I even got a hug when I walked him home.

Was this night a success? Heck Yes!

Just Dance!

The theme for my week has been dancing. On Tuesday, our ward had a Cotillion. We learned proper dance etiquette and different styles of dancing: swing, cha cha and a basic waltz. Rylee, Manju and I went with our friend (and RS president) Ally. It's good that we showed up because the girls were out numbered by the guys. Can you believe that? Usually there aren't enough guys. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. It was fun to see which guys had sweet moves and were capable of dancing. It also gave me a chance to get to know the guys in my ward better. The one I danced with most was Trevor. He's pretty cool. He was in the group I played football with a few weeks ago. We made great dance partners. I've already decided that I'm going to ask him out for a group date we're planing for when the weather is better. It's been freezing here.

The main reason for the Cotillion was because of the dance we our ward had tonight. The dance was pretty fun. It was combined with another ward. We were a little lacking in numbers, but it was still enjoyable. They really wanted us to mingle. They had us do a Cinderella dance, where all the girls put a shoe in the middle of the room and a guy picked one and the owner of the shoe would be his partner for a slow dance. We also did a snowball, where every 40 seconds or so we would switch partners. Then we did a group one where the guys lined up on one side and the girls on the other. We were randomly partnered and took turns dancing down the line. Everyone got to show off their moves. I hate stuff like this because I don't like to be the center of attention and I'm not confident in my dancing, but every once in a while it's fun [and necessary] to do things that get us out of our comfort zone. This was actually the second thing I did tonight that was outside of my comfy bubble.

Before the dance, I asked Matt out for a group date our apartment decided to do next Saturday. We're basically doing a couple's game night, except the only one with a boyfriend is Kristen [We only invited her so we could use the living room since they use it EVERY OTHER NIGHT. We've only used it two other times and she got mad when she got home and saw us with people over. She's the one roommate none of us are close with.] The rest of us just asked guys that we think are cute or friends that we know we'd have fun with. It's going to be competitive. Since it's a game night, we made invitations on note cards that looked like a real UNO card. I came up with this, being the creative little thing I am. THE FRONT: Matt, UNO what would be awesome? THE BACK: It looked like a wild and said, "If you would be my partner for a WILD game night. Saturday February 5th @ 8:30 pm. Please wear a green shirt." I'm really mad I didn't take a picture of it before giving it to him. I'm going to make another one for my scrapbook. We all picked a color for us and our partner to wear, I obviously picked green. We're planning on playing UNO (obviously) with the 7 rule-for intesity, having a JELLO eating contest (in the color of our team), and ending with Wackee Six. It should be a lot of fun. Anyway, I was freaking out a little before asking him. I was pacing around the apartment and asking my roommates what to say because I was the first one to ask. It took me forever to walk out the door and once I did there was no turning back...because Arianna locked the door. Smart girl! But it went well. I was freaking out for nothing (typical girl thing). I could finally breathe again. and then I danced the night away.

Arianna is the only roommate not participating in this group date because she has family events to attend. Replacing her is Ally. Ally and John will be red, Rylee and James will be yellow, Matt and I will be green, Kristen and Brandon will be blue and Manju and whoever she invites will be purple/black-for the guy in case he doesn't have purple. The flavors of Jello follow our colors so the flavors are: cherry, lemon, lime, blue raspberry and grape. Did I mention we're going to be having this contest using straws? Yeah...straws. So we're going to take turns being timed to slurp a whole box of Jello through a straw. Hopefully Matt really likes Jello because I've been kind of put off by it (and pudding) since getting my wisdom teeth out. Between the two of us hopefully we can get a good time. I've actually never been a huge Jello fan to begin with. I can only handle the texture so much before the good ol' gag reflex decides to speak up. Hopefully it stays dormant during the contest. Oh yeah, I failed to mention that none of the guys know about the Jello so it should be interesting. They think it's just a normal game night.

It's going to be a pretty intense night and very competitive because we're going to have awards too. I'll be sure to post pics.