dining, partying, tasting, crafting, lack of sleeping

Birthday tradition- the three of us get together for dinner and spend hours gabbing. with jane in law school and prepping for the bar/her own wedding and grace globe trotting for work- she's in mexico today and heading to China again for two weeks tomorrow after having just returned from China and San Francisco, these 3x/year guaranteed meet-ups are priceless.

i had an incredible scallop salad to start, the suckling pig with risotto, and finished it off with the best.panna.cotta of all time complete with blood oranges and champaigne sauce. mmm. soo good. thank you girls for treating me to such a fantastic meal!

 

After treating me to two private birthday dinners and one birthday dinner with his folks, thk got together with our friend Will to throw me and Will's ladyfriend Kelly a joint birthday party. What was supposed to be a small group of friends getting together for drinks ended up being a full blown table-serviced club-fest with over 30 friends and cake (and some pregaming in the parking lot out of kelly's trunk all collegeghetto style, heh)!

(these photos are out in order. i mean, i wouldn't start out the night drunk and licking ass, right?) it was the best birthday party of my life and i was so grateful to have so many of my good friends come and celebrate with me. the best thing about the whole thing was how loved i felt- grace showed up even though she had to be jetting off to yet another country the next morning, letisha came all the way from playa del rey and totally brought the party in her handbag, and thk made sure Kelly and I had a drink in hand all night long.

this is my last year celebrating my birthday (technically) single and thank god, right? because how fantastic is it to know that for the rest of my life, i get to celebrate my birthday, and every other day, with steve? soo fantastic.

my days of dancing on tables (and falling off of them) and drinking until my liver aches (and it still does. stupid, i know) may be numbered but I don't think I'll ever get over hearing about random "wtf happened after we left?!" stories that include walking out on the bill at denny's at 3am, checking into the motel 6 after you realize everyone left you behind and your phone battery has died so you can't call anyone, calling an escort to your room "only to use her TMobile phone" and finding your sim card won't fit into your phone, and $850 charges on your cc the next morning... haha!

 

We took care of a lot of wedding to-do items on Saturday, including picking out linens, place settings, tableware, table sizes and shapes, as well as attended our first food tasting session at our venue.  

I was a little worried that the mandatory caterer for the venue would suck ass but other than the crap crab cakes, everything else was pretty delish. I think we're going with the phyllo wrapped chicken with spinach and tri tip for saturday night's reception.

 

Allowing me to sleep in on Sunday morning,

thk got up early to let the dogs out,

change my brake pads,

check my oil and fluids,

find a nail in one of my tires and fix it with a tire plug

rotate my tires,

pick me up a spare tire since I’d been driving around without one for the past 4 months,

and wake me up to a deluxe breakfast from McDonald’s.

 

seriously.

 

And then, after all that, I yelled at him, just a little, when he didn’t line up the template perfectly with the patterned paper for our wedding invitation envelope liners  because I’m an anal ass.

 

Want me to help you?

Yes!

How do you do this?

You line this corner right here with this corner right here, then you trace this template like this, making sure to get two complete patterns above this line and three patterns below this line, like this…

Like this?

No.

Like this?

No. like this.

Like this?

NO! GOD!!

 

Honey, how about if we go in the living room and I’ll sit behind you and watch tv while you work and give you moral support?

Ok.

 

And after that was done, thk, his parents, and i spent the rest of the night folding tissue paper flowers a la martha stewart. I read the directions online incorrectly and thk's pops figured out how to make the flowers correctly. hehe.

 i'm pooped but it's monday and back to the daily grind. :)