Beach Bonfire -13yr- Chinese Take-Out Invite

For my thirteenth birthday, i really wanted to do something special for my friends and i. i wanted to celebrate it on the beach, somewhere where i treasure the most. as i started planning it, i realized this party was going to be let out late, so i made a cozy idea of a bonfire!!! 

INVITATIONS i wanted my invitations to be memorable. i realized i couldnt handmake them, since i was inviting 40 people. so, i went to the dollar store, and bought white, chinese food boxes, and packs of seashells. i filled each food box with seashells, and i slipped in the party invitation-white invitations, printed out with beach colored lettering-and i put a sticker on the top of each food box of some sort of beach object. i then passed them out to everyone the next day.

i also made a special list of close friends, who would stay later, those people got invitations on blow-up beach balls, with the invitation wriiten on them. the invitations all read:  heh! 13th party coming up! better come! date: time: place: r.s.v.p: what to wear: what to bring: gift ideas: other information:  (i decided to include a list of gift ideas) 

THEME: i didnt necessarily want the whole howabunga dude" hula skirt beach idea. i wanted a simple beach party where I could play music and serve food etc. so i started deciding on color themes. so i did pink and gray. i hung tiki torches in a square and then i roped together pink and gray streamers and attached them to the torches. that made my party area. i got lots of cloths from the enarby fabric store and was able to rent fold up tables and chairs. so we put the cloths over the tables and over the logs (which we used for the bonfire).  

PLACE: my friends and I tried to find the closest beach which allowed bonfires. That beach was 2 hours away. So my parents had helpers and everyone was droven there by 9 cars!!! (seating 5 in each) it was really cold the day of my birthday so we lit the fire right away. 

FOOD: I was so excited when I picked out my cake! We went to the nearest bakery and found a 2 layer round cake. It was in pink and we had gray edible ribbon attached to it. Then we made sure we bought meat to barbecure. We bought crab and steak chips lots of soda..and some of my favorite appetizers. Then we bought some ice cream and put pink food coloring in it to turn it pink!  

WHAT HAPPENED: as people started to enter I was awaiting them. We turned up the stereo and started dancing with people swimming in the ocean and some were piggin out. We all joined a nearby volleyball game and we had a blast. Then my dad lit the bonfire and we roasted marshmellows as a special treat. We made smores and huddled under blankets. As one by one we started to leave we took pictures. As a gift bag to them I filled up another packs of chinesee food boxes with sand tiny wallet size pictures buried into it and a seashell necklace or an ocean smell perfume.

I was so happy. I know it was a memory I could not forget!  "