"i feel like i've spent the entire weekend being cold."

~said by yours truly. because I kinda did.

honestly I'm far far too tired to go through all 130 of my pictures from this weekend, and I probably shoulda just gone to sleep instead of blogging. I mean, I'm in my bed right now typing this! but anyway...

we did end up going camping. yes, there was a burn ban. but we did have a fire, of sorts. more specifically of the charcoal sort. I must admit that it's odd to have all of my clothes smell like charcoal (instead of like a campfire) and a charcoal fire really really isn't the same, but still. pretty awesome.

friday night was superfun too. matt, betsy, mark and I had dinner at brixx (seriously, we are SO going to earn our party before the end of the year--only fourteen more beers to go) and then the four of us met up with his friend shane at the bowling alley. (shane, by the way, almost inadvertently caused the demise of matt's and my relationship from the get-go--long story short, his presence caused matt to repeatedly change his plans and almost ruined our date, and this was the same night that he got really non-alcohol sick and I had to drive us home and force him to sleep at my house--and really, I'da done the same to any of you. but moving on) I must admit I was a skosh embarrassed by my behavior that evening, mostly because I played wingman of sorts and one of the girls in the next lane and I schemed so that shane and her friend who were talking could continue to do so. that's not like me. I mean, unless you're erik welf.

saturday I was tired tired tired when I woke up. I'm pretty sure we would've slept until 100 easy--but instead we got up to get breakfast and look for lanterns. I'll have to take a picture of the ones we got. After Matt picked one he left for his soccer game, and I decided to do some follow-up shopping at walmart, where I bought four lanterns, four flashlights, a mug I forgot and left at home and something like 32 batteries.

like the true nerds we are, at the campsite we evaluated the relative light output of our lantern options and ended up choosing the pair I'd purchased--together they were $10 more than the one he got, but the were only slightly less bright, run on 3 C batteries (a piece) instead of 8 D and last waaaaaaaaay longer. like, easily ten times. so it'll be cheaper in the long run. and they're smaller, too. I'm pretty happy with our purchase, and I know we'll use them again!

the six of us drank beer (shhhhhh don't tell the ranger!), ate burgers and hot dogs and chips, played apples to apples, wore a whole whole lot of layers and had a whole lot of laughs. matt and I stayed up the latest, per usual, and got to see some amazing stars. I am really looking forward to looking at stars again over thanksgiving. but that whole sleeping part? c.o.l.d. while we were up I'd worn two pairs of socks, mens longjohns that matt brought (and seriously, they have a lot of extra fabric! who even fills that up?!? I mean not to be dirty, but really?!), my jeans, two long sleeved shirts, one short sleeved shirt, a hooded KD sweatshirt and a slicker pullover thing of matt's over that. and gloves and a hat.

but while sleeping, even though we had like, what, seven blankets? still so cold! at one point I woke up and discovered I'd been breathing through my mouth, and seriously expected to find icicles in there! it was even cold in the morning! and after we got everything packed up matt and I went to look at jordan lake. it was sad to see how low the water was!

after that, three things happened 1)I took pictures of mailboxes, 2)we took pictures of a pretty pond, 3)I stepped on an ant pile and they poured out of it and crawled all on my legs. matt kindly pointed out to me that I was standing on one, and we spent like three minutes knocking them all off. thankfully, none of them came home with me--that I know of!

and the rest of today? yeesh. collected my car, went to brunch at brig's in durham (where I had to put on my sweatshirt again), came to my place and showered and left to go to marla and justin's engagement party which was wonderful but outdoors! cold again! thankfully I had my green puffy coat. It was awesome to meet their parents, especially marla's mom and dad who I've heard a lot about, and the food was yum! bbq and peach cobbler and wine and cider and beer? A perfect fall menu! Strangely, though, I took a grand total of three pictures. I think I was worn out! surprise, surprise. My main conversations were about going camping, engineering and being from The One And Only Tulsa, Oklahoma. Quite a few of the people there had been to Tulsa, and we spoke of it warmly. Which helpful on the cold night. (buh-dum, ching. and groan.)

anyhoo, it's bedtime. I'll post most pictures tomorrow. these are just a few teasers! :)