Our patio has recently been finished and so we brought down the bbq from Margaret's place and went out and bought some patio blinds and a gas heater to make the night as comfortable as possible. Of course, as I'm sure you could have guessed, the storm didn't happen and although it was cold with a little bit of rain, we probably could have gotten away with going to the park anyway.
Ah well, such is life.
Christian had plans to have a few drinks and although I normally would have joined him in this I had plans the next day with Barb. Christian and Barb actually have the same birthday and each year we always have problems scheduling their celebrations. Barb wasn't doing anything big this year though so I offered to take her out to lunch for her birthday instead. I went one step further though and planned to do lunch on Rottnest Island. The idea of being hungover and on a ferry in what would probably be rough seas was not what I call a good time and so I made sure I stayed away from the booze.
For Christian however it was another matter. The last time he had a couple was on his birthday last year and that was the first time most people had seen him drunk. Everyone however agreed that he is just delightful when he's drunk and were going out of their way to get him into that condition. One thing you must understand about Christian is that he's very closed mouthed, he rarely talks but is very sarcastic. When he's had a few he gets very chatty and is absolutely hilarious.
There were quite a few people who couldn't make it as they were away or had other plans and a few people couldn't stay for long and so it was just a small group of us although unfortunately for my neighbours we weren't a quiet group. Lots of photos were taken and also a goodly amount of video and so I'll share some with you next. I'll only upload one video as it's quite long and they take forever to load.
Quite early on in the day we realised it was going to be a 'crazy hat' night. Kat and I were wearing hats to begin with, not because they were crazy but because we just like hats. As the course of the evening progressed more and more hats (the majority of which actually belong to me) were paraded about.
Lance works with Christian and is such a super nice guy. His hat unfortunately wasn't crazy enough to be part of 'crazy hats' but I just didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise.
Mike D made use of the clear skies and little remaining sober time to work on the headlights on Kat's beamer. A beanie and a hoodie aren't exactly crazy but come in useful when it's cold.
The kids nagged for cake and so we made Christian come inside and much to his disgust we all sang Happy Birthday to him. It was absolutely atrocious - we were out of time and out of tune. Snoopy was quickly cut up and eaten in a surprisingly short amount of time. Apparently dogs are quite delicious!
Christian pulled out his Kangol beanie shortly afterwards to ward off the chill and those who were not familiar with it made fun of it's bunny-like ears. It keeps his warm though so he has grown quite adept at ignoring the fun made of it.
I found this photo to be rather amusing as it appears that someone has pulled the plug on Christian. He resembles one of those blow up men that decorate the roofs of shops at sale time.
Perhaps I should start feeding my husband more?
I own two 'train conductor' hats and soon they were both being modelled by various people. The Mikes seemed to like them rather a lot.
The party started in the early afternoon and so even though it seemed late, the night was still young. It was half seven when this photo was taken.
Christian's hatred of the camera tends to evaporate when he starts drinking and so I actually managed to get quite a few pics of him over the evening. This is one of my faves.
Isn't he just adorable!
We set up our Dart Board and had fun playing Burma Road for most of the evening. Dart and drink don't seem to mix that well though and by the end of the night we'd completely lost one dart and had only the flight of another left.
Mikey tries to look like a nasty Russian in my pink beanie. Perhaps it was the sheer amount of vodka he'd consumed?
His Swiss Milkmaid look was pulled off slightly better.
Although Christian had had a few drinks by now, he still wasn't properly drunk. The Mikes in particular weren't happy about this and so they proposed another bottle shop run. When they came back a drink that Christian called 'The Nectar of the Gods' was made which consisted of Vodka, Gin, pineapple juice and lemonade.
It didn't take long for it to have an effect.
I managed to sneak up on Christian and have a photo taken with him.
Barb hates having photos taken and she will be so mad at me when she finds I've posted these next two photos. I think they're really nice though so I'll take the tantrum she throws with a grain of salt.
I'm a bit annoyed that I didn't get a photo of Jo and Barb when Jo was still there. Everyone seems to think that they're twins but I can never see it. Then again, I don't think I really resemble either of them so perhaps my judgement is lacking. Everyone else seems to think I look like them.
Kat is very much like a sister to me and so it was nice to have a photo taken of me Barb and Kat.
I really like this photo :)
Mike accuses me of being more cuddly than normal when I'm drunk but I'd just like to ask who has who in a headlock in this photo? I'd like to point out that I was sober when this was taken. I'm just a cuddly person anyway.
Chiaki was also sober throughout the evening and so the poor thing had to put up with a lot. I took a heap of photos of these two though because they're just the cutest couple.
I wouldn't even ask...
Right, now the video that I'm about to show you is a documentary style movie taken by Mike. It's wobbly, definitely second rate and will most likely be not at all amusing to anyone not actually present that evening. And I will just point out now that it was Barb who decided it would be a good idea to do a load of washing while my laundry sink acted as an eski.
I am fully aware of the fact that no Oscar nomination will be forthcoming.
We actually had a really early night which was more than fine by me. The Mikes were a shockingly bad influence on Christian and had him sculling beers at one point. He got that drunk that he couldn't walk and couldn't even stand up. After people started vomiting all over my floor and bottles were getting dropped, I made the decision to poor my hubby into bed about half eleven.
Even though Christian was horribly sick the next morning, he asserts that he had a fantastic time and I'm really happy that he did. I'm also really happy that I got so many videos since a lot of the night seemed to be a blur for my beloved and it was good to show him just exactly what he got up to.
I'm an evil woman ;-)
