we celebrated my co-worker christie's birthday last week, and also--unfortunately--her last week with us at the office. amber made a delicious dirt cake complete with flowers and a garden spade for serving :)
and this was a "happy birthday" performance that we couldn't pass up--the staff of the restaurant singing with kazoos and a triangle :) oh, and a sombrero.and the birthday girl, serving up the dirt cake. seriously, so good. amber's recipe is much more than cool whip, pudding and oreo crumbs... she adds in some cream cheese, milk, i think vanilla? it's amazing. (says the pregnant woman who has had a total sweet tooth lately.)
friday night, justin and i decided to do something different dinner. i actually haven't had strong cravings for our dinners out the past couple of weeks, so we went with a new place for korean barbeque. we checked out the menu and decided to go for one of the barbeque meals that you cook on the grill in the middle of your table.
they bring out a platter of raw meat that you order, along with some good appetizers and stuff...
and then all the veggies and sauces to go with it (and some tofu and a chilled sweet chili salad that we weren't entirely crazy about.)
the waitress (who admitted it was her first day and was the only one in the place that didn't speak fluent korean) gave us the tip to share the dinner--thank goodness! and though the experience itself was cool, we weren't crazy about the flavors. we do great with chinese and japanese, pretty well with thai, occasionally try out indian--but i'm not sure we'll go back to korean. maybe another restaurant? or something we don't cook ourselves :)then it was up early saturday morning to meet my college friend ashley and drive together to her baby shower in charlotte. it's hard to believe that we've been friends for 9 years, and now she's finishing up her residency and will soon be a pediatrician (i had tons of questions for her as we drove--so handy to have her around!)
we caught up with ashley's friends and family for the shower at her mom's house. her sister juli did a great job of organizing it and ashley got tons of wonderful stuff for cameron, her little girl who will be here in about 10 weeks.
and we played some fun shower games, like guessing how many squares of toilet paper it takes to fit around ashley's stomach. ashley is a petite girl to begin with, so she looks like she swallowed a basketball. so cute!
ooh, wanted to show off the diaper cake. julianna did a great job with this one, too.
here's the whole group from the shower--several of us were bridesmaids at ashley's wedding, so it was fun to see each other again.
and then the ECU girls--linda and i lived with ashley in the dorms, while amanda and erin lived with her in the apartments off campus.
linda and i stayed the night since we had traveled so far, and we had a great time doing some shopping, hanging out with ashley's family and sitting around talking (and feeling cameron kick up a storm in ashley's belly.) unfortunately, we all were exhausted and tried to stay up talking but i soon had to call it a night. we got up the next morning and had a big breakfast at one of the local diners before we all headed out.
i love these girls dearly and am so glad that we've stayed close, even though we're all living in separate places. we made it through college together, were in each other's weddings (for the most part--ashley's school schedule made it impossible for her to be in linda's, but she was invited) and are now getting to share this next big milestone. and i'll brag--we're a smart crew. linda's working on her ph d right now, while ashley's already an md. and i'm an lcsw. we like letters after our names :)it was a rude awakening straight back into the work week. luckily, we got to celebrate another birthday yesterday, with this delicious cake that krista made for amber.
always a good crowd for an olive garden lunch and birthday cake!
and i managed to make it to the youth group "end of school pool party"--i'd been missing a lot of the weekly meetings because of work, but was able to make it to this one before we wrap things up for the summer. we honored our incoming 6th graders and our graduating seniors....
and had a great time with the crew that came out. i love being a part of this growing ministry!
behind the house where we had the party was a pond with several docks, and some people brought out kayaks to do races (and swimming, though you couldn't have gotten me in that water when there's a nice clean pool just a few yards away.)
it was popular with the kids and adults, though, and we had fun watching the races take place between all of the competitors.
and i hung out on the docks and grass with the spectators, including this adorable girl who is just too sweet. wished i had my big camera for these pictures...
and now we're halfway through the week, and i am so thankful to have made it through this far. we've had some major tech issues with our computers, where my computer started acting up on monday and i was afraid i was going to lose my photos if the hard drive completely crashed. justin's trying to fix it up now to get ready to sell it, and he's passed his laptop on to me since i need one for work and he has a computer at work and doesn't really need the laptop at home. (he actually went without his computer last week to try and prove he doesn't need it so he could justify an iPad. little did he know he'd have to put it into practice this week for real!)on top of all that, my work schedule has been hectic with lots of changes in the office and i feel like i'm constantly playing catch up. i will be at home all this week (on call for the crisis phone, but somewhat grateful that it's making me stay put) and want to get caught up on photo editing and work stuff. and my family's dealing with multiple people being sick or going through treatments, and i think the stress of it all is catching up. (and creating a knot in the back of my neck and making me crave chocolate and other things that i can't have right now.) we have a long beach weekend coming up, and i'm counting down the days until then. i need four or five days away to just chill out--and i cannot wait.
sorry to ramble--it's just been that kind of day. i hope to be back to regular posting at some point, so just bear with me for the time being :)
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