Survivor Weekend

Four years ago my sister got married and before she got married...well actually this dates back to when I got married. For some reason my sister decided to throw me an extra bachelorete party with my cousins. These cousins we see usually once a year at Christmas. But over the years we were having more and more fun with them at family functions..mainly weddings, where socks, drinks, and dancing were involved. So they had a fun night out for me. When my sister got married we decided to do it again. I planned the event to the theme of "Survivor" (my sister is a big fan). I came up with challenges, we voted for people, it was crazy fun! The winner, my cousin Lisa, then hosted the next year. My sister then hosted the following year. And last year I won the title back and got to play "Jeff" and host here in MN. I can't believe I got almost all my cousins to come for the party. They arrived at 3ish and we poured margaritas and the fun began. I did warn neighbors that crazy things might be taking place over here. My cousin Lori was the Sole Survivor this year -so next year I will be travelling back to Wisconsin, but it sure was fun to have everyone here this year.

A quick overview of the challenges:

1. Race to 100 - a paper and dice game - HIGH stress!
2. Catch your food for the night - Grasshopper hunt with a team.
3. Bucket of Ice - I filled a bucket with ice, marbles, and golf balls- oh and garden hose water. They had 1 minute to get out as many balls as they could with their feet.
4. Build your shelter - a craft building a tiki hut
5. Worms in dirt eating contest - dirt cake, who could eat theirs the fastest and of course stick out their tongue to prove it was all down!
6. Sink your boat - They had to build a boat with the materials I gave them. Then they took turn putting rocks on each other's boats trying to sink their ship.
7. Spoons - the card game
8. Flashlight - their team had to take a flashlight from a bucket of 9 flashlights, race down to a bucket in the pitch dark, find the batteries that fit in that flashlight, insert them, get it working, and then pass it off to the next team member. They were timed.
9. And the ultimate challenge was the 4 step challenge:
step 1: Roll a log across the yard
player 2: dig for 10 eyeballs in the sandbox (watch out for toads!)
player 3: untie a knotted package
team: solve a puzzle
team: find frozen t-shirts, thaw them and put them on!

I think the overall night was good. It seemed like everyone was having a good time. The challenges were stressful, fun, and exciting! We didn't do any voting off this year. And we skipped the lawn games and church key challenge (two teams race to thread a bottle opener through their clothing, open the beer and drink it first). We will wait until all cousins can be present.

Thanks for the fun weekend ladies. It is really a special thing to hang out with cousins who you normally wouldn't see but one time a year. We are all very different people but when we end the night sitting around the fire, sharing stories, interests, and laughing - oh the laughter is the best ---- you are reminded that we choose our friends but our families are gifted to us. It makes life so much more fun knowing there are these people out there that would be there for you to laugh with, cry with, celebrate with and be silly with, if you ever needed them. I love that I know my cousins a little better because of this crazy fun weekend. See you girls next year - if not before!