Game Night, House Party Style

As soon as I returned from work last night, I had one goal and one goal only: Operation Clean House.

Not that I live in a train wreck, but Woodstock has an affinity for leaves and entire plants. He enjoys uprooting them and munching on them in our living room. So my house is basically a jungly-mess. It wasn't anything a quick sweep and mop couldn't fix, however!

As soon as we cleaned the house, I bolted to the mall to use my Sunglass Hut discount coupon and actually invested in a NICE, polarized pair of sporty shades for my upcoming running adventures. All within a span of 15 minutes. Apparently it takes me a long time to make smart decisions surrounding my credit card expenditures. But in all fairness, I had been thinking it over for nearly two weeks now.

After my big (necessary) buy, we skipped back to the house just in time to prep all the food and started entertaining some guests. It's funny how all my friends here are the people I work with!

Everyone seemed to enjoy all the snacks the people at House Party sent us to enjoy! We were given Triscuits and Wheat Thins to go along with my bowl of garlic hummus and then Dark Chocolate Pieces. In addition to the goodies supplied by Nabisco, J.D. and I took the whole "Game Night" thing to our own level. We supplied MOVIE BOX CANDY and what's a game without Cracker Jacks?! :) Hoping for more filling food he also heated up a giant flat crust supreme frozen pizza for everyone. Plenty of food if you ask me!!

As for the games -- SO FUN! I'm a trivia junkie. Really, I am. I get super intense and competitive. My favorite show of all time -- and this is not a joke -- is Jeopardy! I love it. A close second's Ca$h Cab. Watch it if you haven't, it'll change your life.

Well this House Party is essentially built around new Trivial Pursuit (which hasn't yet hit the shelves) and it has the most AWESOME feature of any trivia game. Every play, you get to BET on whether or not the player will guess the question right. It's so cutthroat and conniving, but that's my favorite part about board games :) One of my friends even said this game is a great way of losing friends, haha. You get to hear the category and then place bets on how smart that person is; it's so evil!

So I'll leave you with a bunch of fun pictures. But before I get to that, I almost forgot about the "goodie bags" -- yes, it's like we're 5 years old again. In addition to the coupons House Party gave all our guests, we purchased sports trading cards and decks of playing cards for everyone at the Dollar Store. Our guests were pretty excited with their "five-year old-inspired" goodie bags! So thank you, Hasbro and Nabisco for all these free goodies! We never got around to playing Catch Phrase or Taboo, because we opted to go engage in a little SingStar on the PS3. Oh right, about those pictures.....

Have a great weekend, kiddies! Since Fridays are my half days over the summer, I'm off to grab some Jamba Juice for lunch and then maybe do a couple of workout videos on demand later tonight. Then J.D. and I hit the road for SANTA CRUZ tomorrow in hopes of a fun-filled day at the beach and at the woods. We're going to try and make it to the Mystery Spot. I've never been, but see these damn bumper stickers all over the road. Hopefully it won't be a mystery too much longer.

Who are your friends? People from school, home, work, neighbors, randoms you meet at bars.....?