THIRTEEN!!!!!

 This sweet boy turns thirteen today. Be prepared for an onslaught of super gushy love about my boy. If that's not your thing, then you better go find another blog to read immediately. This year Buddy decided that he didn't want a party, instead he wanted to take a select group friends and take a boat tour to Captain Cook. Last Friday, I asked him if he was sure of his decision, since it would be the first time in his entire history of not having a huge birthday blowout! Turns out, he wanted a party afterall AND to still take a few friends to Captain Cook! If you have ever met me, you know that for my Booger Boo Bear I will make it happen. So, last Friday night, after he told me he wanted a party, I texted some of the mom's of his friends about our impending plans since Halloween time is notoriously busy and I wanted to see if anyone could even make it. 8 moms immediately responded affirmative, so party on!  We talked about what kind of party to have, since, you know, he's a teenager and all now, it had to be cool. We thought about playing fugitive (where the kids get from point A to point B without being seen) but the Nervous Nelly mom could only think of kids getting lost, stolen or hit by a car, so I then threw out the idea of an Escape Room. Buddy immediately agreed.......then he asked what one was! I've only heard of them, never actually seen one in real life, but it sounded cool enough. If you've never heard of them, basically you get locked in a room and have to solve puzzles and clues in order to unlock the door and escape. We decided a zombie theme to our room, because zombies are totally in this season! We put the kids into two teams and had them compete against each other, complete with trophies....

Thank goodness for Shane and his 3-D printer, definitely put this last minute party OVER THE TOP! Of course, when it was all said and done, all the kids wanted a #2 party prize....so Shane is currently working on printing #2's for the winners too! He's a good one, that Shane! Anyway, back to the party, last Saturday the family went garage sale hunting and picked up a bunch of junk to use for the party and then yesterday, Buddy and I competed in a mud run with some of our friends....

Then we hurried home and showered for like 3 hours ( I think he still might be dirty) and started putting together our rooms. Buddy made a movie recording of himself all bloodied up telling the party goers that the zombies were coming and the only way to survive was to 1) get guns and ammo (nerf of course), 2) find and cook the pizza (because zombies get distracted by pizza, and 3) escape through the garage killing any zombies on their way. Buddy also left the first clue in his video message that he couldn't remember where he put the key to get out, but he was doing laundry so they might want to start there....Thank goodness for the mud run in the morning, it provided some quite disgusting laundry for the kids to muddle (get it?) through....even though the next clue was in the dryer nice and safe sound hidden inside a balloon. Then they had to complete a ton of clues and code cracking including deciphering a pigpen code, making an actual phone call on a landline using a phone directory and using a blacklight flashlight to find a glowing clue!

We put in lots of distractions, which was great....and very distracting. We had camera monitors set up everywhere and the kids had a walkie talkie so they could ask for hints (for a time penalty) so we could watch from command central! IT WAS AWESOME! The kids had a blast (at least that's what they told me) and Buddy has thanked me multiple times for the party....even though he didn't compete since he was on the creative team. In other news, we've made our Christmas cards....which means that December 1st can't get here fast enough so I can send out my cards without looking like a complete and total freak....

Just a partial freak, and I'm good with that! So all in all a super fantastic, I have a teenager on my hands, day!