I have THE most amazing friends.

(L to R) Renee, Carl, Lyndsay, Jo Anna, Monica, Liz, Debbie, Greg, Amanda, Me
(Not Pictured: Gabe)

No, seriously. THE most amazing.

Every year since 2003 (except, apparently, 2005) we have gone on an annual camping trip. We've camped in mountains and beaches in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and we planned this camping trip to take place in New Jersey. We found a sweet campsite (Surf & Stream Campground) and planned to drive up on Friday and spend some time at the beach before setting up our tents and getting down to business.

Monica and Renee flew in from New Orleans and Dallas (respectively) earlier in the week, so the three of us and Debbie loaded up the van with all our crazy amounts of stuff and headed up to New Jersey. We spent about an hour and a half at the beach before I started to get antsy and decided we should head back to our site to get everything set up for dinner. I wasn't expecting Carl and Liz to arrive until about an hour later, so I wanted to get the fire all started and our tent all set up before they got there. Monica took her sweet ass time and made us drive out of our way to (attempt) to find a Chase ATM at a Walgreen's and almost earned herself an ass kicking. We finally arrived at the site, settled up with the management, and headed down to the island where we had two tent sites reserved. I grabbed some stuff and headed over the bridge and MUCH to my surprise, was greeted with a "SURPRISE!" from Liz, Carl, Lyndsay and a campsite decorated with streamers and signs.

For those of you who are not Arrested Development fans, I feel sorry for you. The sign is a fantastic reference to a party Lucille throws for Buster when he is headed to the Army.

Anyway, I was met with a fantastic surprise party complete with decorations, basically a full bar in a cooler, and the MOST AMAZING PINATAS EVER. One was a rocket ship that Carl added North Korean flags and text to, making it a North Korean missile, and the other was a giant cupcake. Pinatas are inherently awesome, but these blew my mind. Each one was filled with candy, tiny bottles of liquor, and an assortment of random items (Advil, loofah, etc) and toys (baseball set, recorder, etc) from the dollar store. It was absolutely fantastic.

We had great drinks: And delicious food:

The whole weekend was superb. Even though it rained. All weekend. Like Noah's Ark rained.

Moral of the story, my friends are fantastic. They coordinated this wonderful, and completely unexpected surprise that totally made my day. Basically all the most important friends in my life were there (except Bruno!) which just made it even more special.