Your Presence Is My Present!

A party is not a party without your closest friends and family.  Unfortunately, all of our family lives out of state or are so busy with travel sports, I didn't even put the pressure on them to come, by inviting them. Tyson has had the pleasure of being in the company with a nice array of friends because of his involvement in football, basketball, track, and church . Finding (18) friends to invite was not hard.  What was hard was narrowing it down to the amount of friends that could fit on the Enterprise Van Party Bus.  

I am thankful for the friends that Ty has chosen to surround himself around.  I believe he has chosen wisely.  All of his friends are polite, encouraging, involved in school, and kind. Of course, they are also goofy and wild too, but so is Ty.  Haha.  The majority of these boys have been in his life since he was 4 years old.  How cool!

The paintball facility is nestled in Riner, VA.  Secluded in the beautiful mountains, but on the property of the "referee's" home on Paintball Drive.  LOVE IT!

Before beginning their first paintball game, the "referee" had to go over safety and game rules.

Each boy received safety gear, a paintball gun, and a  bag of 500 paintballs.  

The funniest thing is that these poor boys were having such a time with the paintballs.  They were responsible for loading their own guns. As soon as one boy dropped their bag of balls... haha, it seemed like it was a trickling effect. (See below).

Loading their guns took concentration and most boys filled with excitement don't have that.  

I made sure to capture the shooting area.  I think it's just the perfect scenery.  

These boys were excited and ready!

Our food and gift area was a "No Shooting" area.  THANK GOODNESS.  LOL! Although the boys joked about using the bubble gum as paintballs once they ran out of real paintballs.  

Guess who was invited to Ty's party? Little bro.  He felt cool.

The weather was on and off from BEAUTIFUL to torrential downpour rain.  The boys claimed that the rain and thunder made the paintball game MORE fun. Of course and go figure.  The party host, MUA, on the other had was NOT digging it.  LOL!  But it never messed up my details.  NOT A ONE! After the first round of paint balling fun, the boys came back to the covering for snacks, drinks, and CANDY! We just called this battle fuel  

It blessed me immensely to see how well all of these boys got along.  

There was so much smiling and laughter too.  

Hey look, it's Eli, wait nope, Jackson, wait no... Jadon? Okay, never mind it's Gabe?  NO!!! It's the birthday boy!!! TY!

The fact that these boys were wearing masks kind of deterred me from hiring a professional photographer to capture this day AND eliminated me from feeling pressure to capture the actual paintball games. Although, I did video record several of their games.  I will post those on another day!

Reloading both their guns and their mouths, with necessities.  LOL!

In between games, they would recap the game and it created a ton of light hearted arguing and joking around.  

Alone... don't eat those... those are paintballs.  LOL!  Okay, not really.  

Discussing their next game plan?

The boys LOVED having Darren in on the action.  

Waiting patiently for the next game to start. His shirt reads, "Straight Out Of Tilted Towers".  

Game on!

When you get shot, you raise your hands in the air and exit.

Some were good at hiding and then sneaking out eventually to shoot.

I gave out a trophy to the player with the best welt!!! Tyler Pierce won the trophy.  OUCH!

Between the bus ride and the actual party, I believe this a party they will never forget.