Housewarming Party

This post will cover my weekend in review post for this week... mostly because my weekend (and the week proceeding it) was all I thought about and did things for.  I really wanted us to throw a party for our friends and family.  I wanted people to come, eat and have a good time... and I'd say that was pretty darn successful. 

As you do with lots of events that you plan months for (I'd known I wanted to have a big party for quite awhile since moving in, but finally set the date almost two months in advance).  I wanted as many people as could to come to planning ahead I felt was fairly important.

I did a fair amount of planning for the party including all the food.  Since Dan is an expert griller I let him handle the meat and I handled all the other food.  I debated in my head quite a bit about what to have - I could seriously make so many different dishes.  I was really worried we wouldn't have enough food, but we had SO MUCH food.  I guess it's better to have more than not enough.

Here are the things I decided to make including links to the recipes

• Macaroni and Cheese - I made double the recipe, but would have gotten by with just one batch
• Cheesy Party Potatoes - I made double this too... and this all did get eaten (and for the record I used the hash browns that are cut into little cubes, not the ones that are shredded... oh and since I decided last minute to make a double batch I only used sour cream meant for one batch, and used cream of celery soup instead of chicken for my vegetarians)... also this is not the exact recipe I used, but based on memory it's the closest
• Beans - I got two very large cans of beans,  and most of them did not get eaten.  I added BBQ sauce and brown sugar to them... only needed one can, maybe not at all
• Veggie Tray - I was going to actually all the veggies by hand, but went with a store bought one.  I'm glad I did because people didn't eat very healthy at the party if you know what I mean
• Fruit Salad - I tasked this one to my mom - she always does a good job!!
• Potato Salad - My step-mom wanted to bring something and I let her decide and she brought this, it was good and got eaten well
• Two bags of chips - it was the right amount
• Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting - Made out of a box.  I made two boxes which end up being approximately 40 cupcakes. I really should have only made one batch
• Sheet Cake and Donut Holes - my mom and grandma brought these too - the donut holes nearly all got eaten, and about half the cake.  It was very sweet of them to bring extras
• Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries - I found this recipe a long time ago and always wanted to make it but never did.  I decided since Strawberries are in season that now was the time.  I pretty much doubled the recipe.  They took a bit of time, but not as bad as I thought (especially now that I have a table I can sit at)  They were SO GOOD.  I will make them again, although I'd pipe the cheesecake in them a little differently b/c I didn't put it right into the bag.  These all got eaten fast and I had to save a few for some friends I knew were coming later in the day.
• Lemonade - I made a batch of lemonade to put in a dispenser (I also got about 4 2-liters of soda).  I don't think I put the right amount of powder in there though, but oh well
• Alcoholic Punch - I added more vodka than the recipe called for, it was good!
• Caramel Apple Dip - Susan made this, and this stuff is like crack good.  I'm so happy she made it for the party.

I think that's all the food except the meat which we had hot dogs, hamburgers, brats and pork steaks... see what I mean about all that food?

I prepared what I could (mac and cheese, potatoes, cupcakes) the day before so I wouldn't be running around too much the morning of... of course I still was but not nearly as bad.

Wow, that's a lot of information y'all probably don't need or want!

So the actual party... and I'm about to get gushy here folks... was amazing!!  I am overflowing with gratitude for the people who came and had a good time.  You never know who all will show up especially when a Facebook invite is involved, but we had such an amazing turn out.  I really REALLY wish I had taken pictures, but atlas I have like 3 - and one is a strawberry and the others are the fresh flowers I put around the house.  It was so fun to see our deck so full and people enjoying the beautiful weather.

I'm going to list the people that came, mostly so I can remember since the lack of pictures.  Dan's family came including his parents, sister Amanda, aunt Julie, aunt Michelle  (and her husband and one of her kids), his grandparents.  My family came including my dad and step mom, Grandpa, mom, Grandma, aunt Ruth, and aunt Pat.  My high school friends Amanda (and her husband) and Beth (including her adorable new son).  Friends - Kyle, Randy (Dan's friend), Andy (and Ashley a bit later), Dave (his girlfriend and her friends later in the night), Ben (and his girlfriend Sherelle), Michelle, Susan, Erin and Matt, John and Amanda (and da baby), Charlie, Caleb, and... I hope I'm not forgetting anyone because I would feel bad if I did. 

It was just such an absolutely perfect day.  It meant so much to me to have my friends and family surrounding me having a good time.  I couldn't ask for anything better.  I just love having so many people I care about and love around us together.  It was truly fantastic.

We stayed up pretty late and had a lot of cleaning up the next day - but all so worth it.  Can't say we'll have parties like this very often, but it left me with such a good feeling that I think we'll have to do it again... maybe with not as much food next time :)

Here are the totally lame pictures.  I shouldn't even post them, but I'm going to...

Added some flowers to a planter on our front porch

The strawberries - so amazing!  I really want to make them again like now

All the beer we had left - we're going to have to have another party to get this drank... plus look at the hot dogs we have left too

Fresh Flowers - I arranged them into a couple of little settings - tall shot glasses worked really well for this.  This one was next to the door bell

In the phone holder in the hallway

These flowers are still making me happy every time I go to the bathroom

Like I said, it was a wonderful day filled with family, friends and love.  Thank you everyone who reads this that made it and for those who didn't, you were missed!

DC Trip - Part 2

Let's finish up this nice little recap of our trip to DC.

On Saturday we ate breakfast at the hotel (it was a mad house!).  Then we walked to a small farmer's market they were having in Downtown Silver Spring.  We walked around and the rest of them decided to get some coffee.  I just had some water.

Then we headed to the metro station and headed to the ballpark

On the way in

The weather was gorgeous and our seats were pretty amazing too.  The kinda funny thing is we were in the first row of our section and when we sat down the kid behind us started complaining loudly about how we blocked his view... oh kid.
 

view from our seats

We also managed to get a nice group shot.

We had a couple of beers and some random food.  It was crazy how long EVERY line was for food... never seen anything like that before... but to me DC is standing in line, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

After the game we headed over to a bar called Iron Horse.  We went there to watch the end of the Blues game.  And man - what an exciting game!  The Blues tied it up with only 6 seconds left to push it into overtime.  They ended up winning and my dad was excited to say the least...

(reenactment)

We then headed up the street to go to dinner at Matchbox.  This was also a pizza joint, and very delicious.  We ate way too much food while we were there!

Chinatown where the bar and dinner were located

We headed back to Silver Spring, but had to wait forever because of the Metro system on the weekends (annoying), but we finally made it back.

The next morning (our last) we got up and checked out of the hotel.  We went to Founding Farmers for Easter Brunch.  It's pretty popular in the DC area.  We had a little trouble with our reservation and at first thought we were going to have to eat outside.  Luckily they accommodated us inside by adding a chair to a booth. 

All the food was delicious looking.  Usually I'm more of a savory breakfast person, but decided to go with New Orleans Style Stuffed French Toast with Bananas Foster topping.  It was so so good.  It was like dessert. 
 

F-ing French Toast (quote from a movie)

We headed up to Baltimore and stopped by a museum (it was free and cannot remember what it's called) and to stop by the grave of Edger Allen Poe.  Then Keith took us to the airport where we said our goodbyes and headed back home (which was the worse flight I've been on because of the pressure in my sinuses... blah)

Overall it was a wonderful trip.  Of course I would rather Keith leave closer, but DC is a nice alternative because there's so much to see and do there. A special thank you to my dad and Janet for taking me with them.  It was really a lot of fun!

DC Trip - Part 1

I'm going to do something a little different here... I am first going to get the negative part of my trip out of the way first, that way I don't have to mention it again and you can see truly how much fun I did have.  The only negative part of this trip was that I got sick... I think with allergies.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I felt fine all day Thursday and sometime that night I started to get a headache, which continued the next day.  Then the nose started running and the sneezing and a stomach ache (not sure if that's related or not, but throwing it in there).  It sucked.  Then when we headed back home on Sunday - well the pressure already in my sinuses combined with the pressurized cabin of the airplane made it like a million times worse.  I ended up calling in sick Monday and went home early on Tuesday.  It's currently Wednesday and I'm beginning to feel a lot better, however I'm still fairly congested (I sound like I'm holding my nose when talking)  So there's the bad... it's out of the way!

Back to the good part - last week/weekend my dad, step mom, Janet, and me went to visit my brother in DC.  We picked this particular weekend because the Cardinals were playing the Nationals in DC and thought it would be a fun time to go. 

We left on Wednesday evening.  Our flight got into Baltimore around 9pm.  While we were waiting for our plane in St. Louis we had some food at Chilis and I had a margarita!

Been craving one

When we got into DC Keith and his girlfriend, Sarah, picked us up at the airport and we headed to Silver Spring, where they live.  Once we got up to the hotel and got situated (I got the pleasure of sleeping on a roll-away bed, but that's not me complaining) we went out for some drinks at an Irish pub close to their house - McGinty's.  We had a couple of drinks and then headed back to the hotel.  It was getting kinda late at that point (for me at least)

On Thursday we woke up and got ready at a leisurely pace.  Keith had to work and Sarah had other plans so we decided to check out the Newseum.  With the help of an app on my phone I got us all there in one piece by navigating the metro system and walking - I'm not going to lie, I was pretty proud of myself.

I originally took this b/c I thought they were cherry blossoms, but now I'm not so sure they are... may have been what caused my allergies though...

The Newseum was really pretty neat.  While it talks about journalism (both written and visual) there's a lot about general things that happened in the news.  We spent a lot of time there, and still wasn't able to see everything.  Tickets are good for two days, but we only spent one there.

Outside they had the front page papers of each state.  Here's St. Louis!  They also had these inside as well.  Since I am lame or something I counted how many papers had a cover story about the ferry disaster in South Korea - out of the 40 papers I counted, 18 had that story on the front page somewhere.

They have a lot of cool things in the Newseum, but one of the neatest is the Berlin wall.  Here's a piece you could touch.

Dave was here (like Kilroy haha get it? no?)

They also had a big piece of the wall.  The West Berlin side was all graffetied up while the East Berlin side was clean.

Very interesting, and something that happened in my lifetime which is hard to believe.  Although I was pretty young when the wall came down.

 

They also had an FBI exhibit which talked about famous events - Gangsters, civil rights, Lindbergh baby kidnapping, Unibomber (including his cabin), 9/11 and other terrorist acts, Oklahoma City bombing and Waco.

Dad posing with a gangster

Next we went up to the top floor which had a fantastic view of the Capitol Building.  I used an app my mom recommended to get these pics - Pro HDR Free - they kind of look photo shopped.

Another one of the most interesting things at the museum was 9/11 and it's coverage.  September 11th happened when I was a senior in high school.  They show a video about the news coverage that day and people who were there reporting it.  I cried...

This was the antenna on top of one of the towers

Wall of front pages the day after 9/11 happened

This picture I took a couple of floors up, but goes with the Berlin wall stuff - this is the "Death Tower" which was on the East Berlin side and would watch for people trying to flee to West side.  Their orders were to kill.

Another one of the good exhibits there was they have every Pulitzer Prize winning photographer.  It was a very interesting room and pretty sad because a lot of those photos show poverty, hardship, war, etc.  I didn't get any photos in this area.

Finally they had an Anchorman exhibit.  I walked through it in about 5 minutes - there wasn't much other than some props and costumes.

60% of the time it works every time

Here's a funny t-shirt I found in the gift shop...

After finishing up at the Newseum we headed over to close to the stadium.  We met Keith and Sarah at a micro-brewery, Bluejacket.  It was very good and had an awesome selection of beer.  It was around this time my phone died sadly.

 

After some drinks and food we headed over to the ballpark.  It was a great game and the Cardinals won 8-0.  The game was REALLY cold though, so we didn't stay too too long, but longer than we originally thought we would.

 

We headed back to Silver Spring and went back to McGinty's to watch the end of the game and the Blues game.  I stayed at the bar for the first overtime, but then headed back to the hotel.  I watched the second overtime there and then went to sleep... of course I missed when they actually scored in the third overtime to win the game.

 

On Friday we were pretty worn out from all the walking and missed breakfast at our hotel.  So instead we went to french place in Silver Spring - La Madeleine.  It was a very tasty breakfast!  During this time we tried to find tickets to Saturday's baseball game since it was a day game and we wouldn't freeze to death.  We planned to go to the Holocaust museum that day, but instead decided to drive around DC and take in the sights this way.  I will say I never want to be a driver in DC, but Keith did a great job.  We drove by a lot of the monuments and different areas of DC. 

 

We ended up eating at Comet Ping Pong. We ordered several different kinds of pizza and it was all very delicious.  We ended up heading back to Keith and Sarah's where we watched the Cardinals game and played Heads Up during commercials.  It was a very nice night.

 

Comet Ping Pong

Original Artwork in their apartment, you could talk about this picture for hours!

I'll be back to recap the final two days very soon.

Weekend in Review: ZooQuest and Cardinals

I had a full weekend, but it was awesome... truly awesome!

Friday I got the pleasure of waiting at home for the delivery man to show up with my patio furniture.  It was one of those 4 hour windows (11-3) and since it required a signature I had to be there... I really wanted to get in the shower, but I knew as soon as I did they would show up... so I just waited and waited and finally at 2:30 he showed up.

But in the mean time of waiting I got some super big news job related news.  So that was awesome.

When Dan got home we put together the patio furniture.  Of course I started on a chair and he started on the table.  He finished the table and started on a chair and finished that chair before I even finished my first chair... figures.  I let him put together the rest while I organized the rest of the materials and threw things away and stuff like that.  Soon there after (because Dan is an assembly master) our patio furniture was put together!  I am so happy to have it.  My mom gave it to me for my birthday.  I found the set on Walmart.com.  It was the cheapest set I could find, especially for a 7-piece set and luckily I love it!  Patio furniture is too freaking expensive!

 

After that I got ready and we went out with my dad to Granite City Brewery (it's not actually in Granite City).  It was such a nice night of drinking some beers, eating some food and hanging out with my dad and Dan and Janet.

 

On Saturday I got up and got ready to meet my sister.  We decided a couple of weeks ago to participant in the ZooQuest at the St. Louis Zoo (lite version).  We really weren't sure what to expect, but thought we'd have a good time.  Here we are before we started:

 

At first when we got our packet we felt really overwhelmed.  The basic-ness of ZooQuest is it's part trivia part scavenger hunt.  We had four 'quests' and some trivia.  We started walking around with no clear idea what the heck we were doing.  The four quests were 1) word clouds and we had to find the animal that corresponded 2) A logic problem, 3) a crossword puzzle and 4) looking for visual pictures for missing letters.  Once we sat down and really just forced ourselves to start it went much better. 

 

We had a lot of fun, it was a ton of walking, but it was such a beautiful day, so that was nice.  Of course since it was so nice out everyone and their mom was at the zoo... with a stroller.  Even though we didn't place, I would totally do it again, it was a really fun day with my sister.

 

After we finished we headed back home, grabbed mom and got some food.  It was fun connecting with her.  We would have loved for her to attend too, but she had to work... boo

 

After food I finally headed back home and I was TIRED!  When I got to my house Dan had invited some friends and my cousins over.  They were hanging out on our back deck (new patio furniture for the win).  I was planning on showering as soon as I got home, but hung out with them.  It was fun because Dan moved the TV outside.  Gotta love having a hook up out there. 

 

The weather was soo beautiful so it was great just hanging out.  We played a couple of rounds of Cards Against Humanity then watched some TV.

Liked the reflection in my glasses

TV! Outside!

On Sunday my sister came over and we headed down to the Cardinals vs. Cubs game with Liz and Ken.  The seats were pretty high up, but it was a great view.  It started raining and they delayed the game for a bit, but luckily Lindsey was smart enough to bring ponchos for both of us!  After the rain passed we were able to watch all the game and we did well!! Lots of hits so that was exciting.

 

I came home and was tired, but did some laundry and we ordered Chinese for dinner.  Overall it was such an amazing weekend.

On a final note, I planted bulbs this past fall and they survived the winter and bloomed this weekend - so pretty!!

Weekend in Review: Is it finally spring??

One thing I've read a lot of places is people just being all up in arms about the 'crazy' winter we had this year.  And yes, it has been quite the winter(!) but I feel like this is more normal of a winter compared to what we've had in years past.  I think people especially round these parts tend to have weather amnesia year-to-year.  I especially hear that in the summer where people say it's never been this hot, this summer is the hottest ever, and that humidity - terrible.  Um, it's normally that hot round here and that humid... actually for the most part summers have been fairly mild as of recently, which is very nice.  While we got a TON of snow this winter, which hasn't happened recently, and the temperatures were lower than recent years, I'm not sure it's that crazy of a winter?  I'm not sure... either way, I'm happy for the warmer weather, but I didn't absolutely hate the winter we had... and I don't think I've uttered the phrase 'will this winter get over with already' or anything similar to that.

Wow... that was quite the rambly paragraph... but I am looking forward to hanging out on my awesome deck come warmer weather.  And I do hope that spring in the weather sense lasts awhile... better than going straight to hot and humid like we do some years.

Anyway... off the random soapbox and back to the weekend.

On Friday I had a relaxing day... the last few Fridays I've had plans... but this one I didn't and I was so happy.  I got some breakfast and watched recorded TV from the week and lounged around.  I also did laundry.  When Dan got home we hung out and then went over to Fairview Heights because he just had to have some of this limited edition beer... and that's where he knew it was in stock.  We headed over to the Randall's.  He got his beer (along with another bottle of something he wanted to try) and I got a (big) bottle of cherry cider.

Then we went to dinner at Show-Mes.  I let Dan pick and since the one close to us closed it's where he really wanted to go.  According to him they have better wings than Hooters.  We each had a Blue Moon and enjoyed the ambiance (that's a joke).  When we got back home we watched Anchorman 2 (ok well I did Dan went to bed at like 8:30... in his defense he had to work the next morning at 6am)

On Saturday Dan was at work in the morning.  I made myself breakfast and lounged around.  I really wanted to get a couple of things done during the weekend because we are having a party in a couple of weeks and I've got plans for both Saturday and Sunday next weekend and I'll be out of town the following weekend so needed to get some of the major things done this weekend. 

I decided to clean out the storage closet (which is also where the cat's stuff is.  That closet had just kind of ended up as a catch all for boxes of stuff we didn't know what to do with - which is what I storage closet should be... however we had just thrown things in there without any real order or identification of what was in the boxes.  Worse, I hadn't been able to move the Christmas items back into that closet - so they were just sitting out in the open of the main downstairs part.

So I began to pull out all the boxes and see what the heck was in all of them... that part wasn't the most fun - especially when I encountered a spider that was frighteningly close to my hand... but since I hadn't let the close get too out of control, it wasn't that bad either.

The boxes all pulled out - not even all of them as they stretch to the left too - including all that Christmas stuff I referenced earlier... And Stitch in the foreground... if I'm down there she HAS to be on my lap...

Some of them were mine and others were Dan's.  While Dan refused to get rid of anything... I was able to get rid of some random stuff.  And at the very least was able to condense Dan's boxes down and label them better.

The really fun part was I went through some of my childhood boxes... so it was fun to have a short walk down memory lane.
 

The Beanie Baby collection - weren't these supposed to make me money someday?

The kinda funny thing is the dogs (mostly Bella) use Beanie Babies as toys.  We had a few accidents with them getting holes (at Dan's apartment) but mostly they hold up well and Bella likes carrying them around.  Although I don't think I'll let her have my random stash... a lot of these were given to me by my Uncle Steve, so they have a special place in my heart.

I have the regular and teenie beanie baby - that's gotta be worth something right?

I also found where I kept all my baby teeth (in this creepy cat dish no less)... I ended up finding quite a few more at the bottom of the bin where they had fallen out of creepy cat dish.

Wasn't the tooth fairy suppose to keep these?

Either way I got all the boxes condensed, organized and put back into the storage closet in a way that made sense.  Now here's where I show you the after picture!  But I totally forgot to take one, so you'll just have to believe me.  It felt really good to get that done! 

While I was finishing that up - Dan came back home and had brought BBQ supplies with him.  Caleb also came over and we spent a lot of time outside.  It was so nice to sit in the sun and just relax.  It was one of those days where sitting in the sun feels good but the shade is too cold... we won't have very many of those left, but it was nice to enjoy while we could.

Dan made chicken and shrimp kabobs.  He marinated the meat in a jerk seasoning first and then added them to sticks with pineapple.  It was SO DELICIOUS!  The grilled pineapple was so yummy.  I'm really lucky to have a boyfriend who can grill well!

Dan and Caleb also made some veggies in a pan on the grill (with olive oil and seasoning), jalapeno dogs (I bought some earlier in the week and since the grill was going might as well throw them on there) and the boys also made some steaks.

After we ate we went over to Lou and Amanda's house to hang out with them for awhile.  I'm really liking how often we see them - it's really nice living so close.  They had a fire going so we sat around the fire and chatted for a bit.  The best part of this time of year is the lack of bugs - I know they will be out soon and I'll not like outside as much, so enjoying it while I can.

We hung out there for a few hours and then went over to Dave's place.  He had recently bought a fire pit, so we hung out outside there for a couple of hours too.  I liked hanging out with some of them, but there were some girls there that were pretty annoying... but what can you do?  Once Dave ran out of wood to burn we headed back to our house and called it a night.

On Sunday we considered going to the Queeny Park Art Fair, but then decided not to.  I did what I had already planned on doing on Sunday - which was raking the leaves.  Before I started I thought it wouldn't be that big of a job... and I was wrong, there were WAY more leaves in the yard than I realized... and more dog poop because someone hadn't been cleaning up after them...

Either way, I got all the leaves raked up into piles and Dan headed to the hardware store to get yard waste bags and some over random stuff... It felt good to get all the leaves into piles and hopefully Daniel will pick them all up sometime the week.

The rest of the day was fairly leisurely... I made chili...

Overall I had a good weekend and thought it was productive which is good.  How was yours?

Chili #1

I'm going to admit a not so secret secret... I love chili. Seriously one of my favorite foods ever. To me, chili is not just a fall/winter food. I make chili all year round. I used to only make one particular kind (beef traditional) but as some of the recipes on this blog shows (here and here and at least one I never blogged about - white turkey chili) I've been venturing out of the chili box - and I'm excited to try even more... (and not just making them I order chili from places on a pretty routine basis.) But sometimes I just like a good bowl of the traditional stuff.

Lately I've been trying to vary up the recipe each time. The problem is I really haven't taken note of what I did differently and how it effected the taste. Which means I'm going to start chronicling it here. How exciting for me and probably boring to you :)

Here are some things I've figured out up to this point:

• I like lots of beans
• 2 cans of Rotel is too much
• I don't mind ground turkey instead of ground beef. Since the turkey is healthier I just always use it. Dan probably wishes I used beef but whatever the turkey is good enough. 
• Dan will not eat or even taste chili with ketchup in it. Not even worth it to try to put it in without thinking he'll notice. 

So with that said here's this recipe. Just gonna number the recipes, so this is Chili #1

1 can of chili beans (generic) undrained and fill up with 1/2 water and dumped in

1 can of light red kidney beans (generic) drained

1 can of black beans (generic) drained

1 small can of tomato sauce (generic)

1 can of Rotel Hot undrained

1 packet onion soup mix (generic)

1 packet chili powder seasoning (Brooks)

A couple of shakes of Cajun seasoning

A couple of shakes of cumin

A couple of shakes chili power

A few shakes of crushed red pepper

A few shakes of Worcester sauce

A few shakes of hot sauce (generic like Franks)

1lb of lean ground turkey breast,browned

Everything dumped in and left on low (turned to warm halfway through b/c my crockpot is like super crockpot) on the crockpot for like 6 hours at least (sure it's good to eat whenever but the longer you let it cook, the better it's going to be)
 

Notes:  I really liked it. I think the Worcester sauce made a difference. It needed to be a tad bit spicier though. Next time add fresh jalapeño maybe?  Or buy some cayenne pepper? Overall really tasty!!

My Birthday Recap

Yes... I have now officially been 30 for a whole week... and I survived!

I wanted to share all the amazing things that happened for my birthday.

It all started last Tuesday with a special dinner with my mom, sister and boyfriend.  We went to Quincy Street Bistro.  It was delicious.  Part of the reason we went to this place is when I was born my parents lived on a house on Quincy Street (in South City).  So of course my mom drove by the house and forced me out of the car to take a picture...

We drove around a bit more - looked at the Jenny tree - and then headed home for cake

My mom used her new stand mixer to make me this delicious lemon cake with homemade lemon butter cream icing and lemon curd filling - so yummy!!

On Wednesday I went to my final day of work for last week (took off on my birthday and normally off every Friday).  After work I went over to Michelle's house for our normal Survivor watch party.  She was so sweet and got me a birthday present - lip gloss/chapstick and Uganda Be Kidding Me by Chelsea Handler. 

She also got cupcakes from Jillys

Ugh - I just had this all typed out and deleted all my text from here down... grr stupid blogger...

Jilly's monthly cupcakes were Wonka themed for March.  I forgot the get the descriptions before they switched to may cupcakes - but the one on the left is the Veruca Salt and the one on the right I believe is the Willy Wonka.  The left one had peanut cake with caramel filling and the right one was funfetti cake with marshmallow filling.  They were both so good!  Although waaaay too much icing.  I'm not a huge butter cream icing fan, while it's good - there's too much.  I mean check out that picture below... the green and purple one had like two inches of icing - no thanks!

The Wonka one had an everlasting gobstopper on top which was just a gobstopper with nerds.

 

This brings us up to Thursday, my actual birthday.  I was treated to some lovely cards in the mail.  (not pictured the one Keith sent me since it came a couple days later)

I thought I'd throw this picture in too - it's one of the day I was born with my grandparents.  I was their first grandbaby.  And yes - I took a picture of a framed picture.
 

 

I was supposed to get my hair done, but that ended up not working out.  So instead I went to a couple of stores and bought a few things.  Then headed up to my dad's house.  My dad actually made birthday plans with me almost three months ago (so cute).  He got AMAZING tickets to the Blue's game.  First we went to Joe Bucks for food and then headed over to the game.  It was a fantastic game to go to as the Blues scored 5 and Oshie got a hat trick.  Since we were on the end with the net when people started throwing their hats  some didn't make it onto the ice and I ended up with a free hat!

Yes this was the actual view from our seats and sadly I didn't get my camera out fast enough to capture ALL the hats that were out there.

On Friday I started out by getting my hair done.  I was really ready for a change but I didn't want to cut everything off - so I decided color would be a better way to go.  I haven't had color in my hair in quite awhile.

Here's the before

And here's the after - much healthier and I've finally gotten used to looking in the mirror and seeing a different color :)
 

This picture was taken after Happy Hour and more drinking... so yeah... just throwing that out there

After hair I met up with Susan and we got our nails did.  It was quite the pampering day for me.  I got a manicure and pedicure.  I got pink glitter on each and I LOVE it!!
 

Taking good picture of your hands is tough

After our nails we went to Happy Hour at Patricks (formerly Pujols).  It's my happy hour place of choice.  Susan came along with Dan, Andy, Dave, his girlfriend, my dad and Janet.  It was a really fun time and I'm so happy so many people were able to join us.

Overall I had a wonderful birthday weekend - I'm so happy that so many people made it special for me.  Maybe being 30 won't be so bad... haha