Absolutely!

I've played a lot of drinking games in the past. A drinking game can really be anything you'd like, and some of the best ones are the ones that you make up yourself. The Friday and Saturday before our wedding were full of drinking games. Friday night the majority of the wedding party decided to leave our hotel to come and stay at Dan and I's house. I really wanted an elephant ear from the fair across the street, but we never seemed to make it over there. We just all assumed our positions around our big coffee table and started playing drinking games.

We decided on one of my all time favorites, circle of death, also known as Kings. Justin brought some of his own rules from IU and we incorporated those of course, but the funniest/worst part about this drinking game is that everyone was drinking with liquor or wine, which equaled the most ridiculous group of people you would ever see... and I didn't even get to see that much of it because Dan cut me off and told me it would be in my best interest to go to bed... so I did.

The next morning we all somehow woke up at our house, us girls needed to get Byron back to the hotel so that he could finish his paper. We teased him that it was probably the most obnoxious car ride he's ever experienced and he sat in the front seat with his head in his hands probably just listening to us in disbelief! We get pretty disgusting and unbearable when we are hungover...

So we made it back to the hotel, had the most fun day, Byron finished his paper (which he later proudly told us he got a 95% on), and we were off to the rehearsal dinner.

We of course had to incorporate The Signature Room into our wedding weekend, and what better way to show off our new city to our friends and family then to take them there for dinner. We rented a huge bus and everything for the trip. It was on this trip that Byron came up with my favorite drinking game ever... ABSOLUTELY!

It started with just, "every time Donna says absolutely you have to take a drink." About halfway through the night Donna caught on and was using it in every single sentence. It then didn't matter anymore who said it, just every time someone said it, you must drink. Every one was hammered! So it became the wedding parties thing, we "Cheers-ed" to it the entire next day, Dan and I were taking drinks of our Guinness when we said it on our honeymoon, and I would text the girls, "I absolutely love you, now please take a drink."

Rick loves the game too. We were going through one of the scariest times that such a young family should go through, meeting with Father Scott before the funeral at the Hartman's house one morning, and Father used the "absolutely" word in a sentence. Rick and I just looked at each other, raised our coffee cups, and took a drink. And smiled of course.

So now it's a lot of people's thing back home. The group of us probably drank 100 beers at the St. Martin's Church Picnic, just drinking to absolutely, and we know if Byron was there the total would have probably gone up to about 120. I write emails to the girls and always try to fit in the word just to get a smile out of them. And whenever I'm on the phone with a client I say the word, and take a drink of my coffee.

It absolutely is my favorite drinking game, and it came about so simply. Byron just leaned over to the group and said, "Let's take a drink every time Donna says Absolutely." And look at us now.

So I'm raising my glass of wine tonight to a fantastic memory, one that will absolutely always be with me.