Fort Shaqueesha

It's 3:15am and I am still up...mostly because I'm completely wired from a ridiculously fun night! I had a group of girls over for a movie/fort/pajama night and it was even more fun than I expected (and I expected it to be pretty dang fun!)! Everyone got there around 8ish and we hung out, played some wii, etc. while I finished cooking a few things. Then it was fort construction time! We used a total of 7 full/queen/twin sheets (and the drapes :)), the ceiling fan, the dining room chandelier, who-knows-how-many safety pins, 3 strands of Christmas lights, 7 blankets and I can't even count how many pillows and couch cushions. We named it Fort Shaqueesha, although I'm not sure if we decided later on that it should change to Fort Rysha. After midnight everything became so ridiculously funny...who knows.

We watched Surrogates, which I thought was a good movie, but I almost feel like I need to watch it again to make sure I got everything. I wouldn't say it's a "top movie" or anything, but I definitely think it's worth seeing. After the movie a few people had to take off, but the rest of us hung around for a massive game of NERTZ! I will say playing that in a fort while sitting on cushions (some with velcro - Jennie!) is definitely a challenge, but I was uber impressed with everyone's skillz! We had quite a few first-timers and they rocked it!

I made spinach dip, nutella chocolate heath bar cookies and peanut butter cinnamon popcorn. The spinach dip is a staple...I've made it for many occasions and it's usually pretty popular. The nutella cookies was an idea I had...and then I found a basic recipe that I was able to change up and I must say that worked out really well! They were perfectly crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. I'm thinking I might try using the same basic idea for a simple chocolate chip cookie and see if it works. I also love having cookies rolled in natural sugar crystals. It not only tastes good, but it makes the cookies so pretty!

The peanut butter popcorn was another recipe I ran across, but again, changed it up a bit. It was too thick for my taste, so I added some milk and vanilla to thin it down, and while I originally intended to add a teensy weensy bit of hot sauce to the peanut butter (the idea intrigues me), I realized I was out of hot sauce, so instead I stuck with the sweet route and sprinkled the popcorn with cinnamon and sugar. The whole bowl was devoured, so I'll take that as a success and make sure to write down the adjustments.

Well, I should be going to bed now, but I'm entirely too tempted to play some Medal of Honor on the wii. I don't know what it is, but man, I love shooting things.

Tonight was such an awesome night with an incredible group of women...and I hope it's just a small taste of all that the year has in store!

Fort Fridays will definitely be a reoccurring event! :)