Tag: birthday

Surprise 60th Birthday Party

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Surprise parties can be iffy; some people love being surprised and some people hate it. Luckily, the surprise 60th birthday party for my mom’s best friend, Christine (who happens to be a “Shapleigh Girl” mom… Sara and Amy’s mom, to be exact), went off without a hitch and was very well received by her. In fact, I don’t think she could have been happier OR more surprised… a win-win (side note- when I first typed “win”, I accidentally typed “wine”. Does that mean I have a problem?) situation if you ask me!

I headed up to Christine’s house in East Wakefield, NH Saturday after my kickboxing class. Sara took Christine to go baby shopping for Zeke, so Amy, my sister and Gordie headed up early on Saturday to get the house “party ready” while Sara and Christine were shopping. By the time I showed up, the house was looking great!

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The weather was absolutely perfect for a fall party. Not too hot, but warm enough for people to enjoy the weather out on the deck. People started arriving around 3:30, in anticipation of Christine and Sara’s 4pm arrival. Once we got the heads up saying they were on their way, we headed outside for the big reveal of the surprise!

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Not long after, she arrived!!

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And boy was she surprised! I think everyone started crying when she arrived because her emotions were contagious! Both Christine and my mom are HUGE gushers… aka, people who gush over, well, anything, so when she realized what was going on she was crying and screaming and laughing and just completely shocked. I don’t think I’ve seen a more successful surprise!

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Gosh just looking at those photos makes me get all choked up again!

I’ll let the photo’s do the rest of the talking. I am so happy to have been a part of such a special day for an incredible lady. Christine is like a second mom to my sister and me so it was awesome getting a chance to shower her with love and celebrations!

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Happy Birthday, Chris!!! Now you don’t have to plan your own party 😉

Questions for you: Do you like surprise parties? Have you ever thrown one or had one thrown for you? I haven’t, but I think I would love it.

Happy Birthday Papa Bear! {and 5 things I’m looking forward to this weekend}

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Hey there! Happy, happy Friday! And a very special Happy Birthday to my dad, aka: Papa Bear! Thank you so much for all your recent help with moving me into my new apartment and always being there when I have a stupid little question to ask your or need someone to keep me company while I walk home.  Also, since my dad is a twin, it’s only fair for me to wish a happy birthday to his twin, Uncle Joe! I hope you have a wonderful day with your family 🙂

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….

I don’t know about anyone else, but I have been waiting for this weekend to come ever since Monday morning rolled around. I feel like I have so many unfinished things on my to-do list that I’m really looking forward to having time to at least cross some things off! On top of that, while I was in the shower, I realized there are lots of things I’m looking forward to, so I thought I would share 5 of them with you 🙂

  1. Cristina’s birthday get together at Tia’s on Saturday night. I always like having events like that on my calendar for the weekend because it’s a great excuse to get together with my girlfriends!

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2. Working from home today. There’s something so great about knowing on Thursday night that I don’t have to pack up my lunch and other bags and make the trek into the office the next day. Today is also my much-deserved rest day so it’s nice to not have to schedule in a workout.

3. Starting my Saturday with a workout that doesn’t include teaching (not that I don’t love it, but when I don’t teach I can get up and get my workout done nice and early! Or, not nice and early and do it later in the day… it’s nice to be on my own schedule) and then tackling my “to-do” and “to-get” list. Don’t worry, my Saturday won’t be filled with only errands; it’s supposed to be nice out, so I’m going to take a few hours to relax and sit by the Somerville pool since I’ll be in the area!

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4. Spending Sunday with my sister! We haven’t hung out since last weekend and I miss her (okay, and I need her styling advice with various apartment decisions I need to make).

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5. Exploring my new neighborhood a little more. I found a lot of things during my run on Tuesday, but I know there’s lots more to see! I need to get in touch with some of my friends who live in the area, too… it’s going to be great having people around!

Your turn!! What are you looking forward to this weekend? Any fun plans? Do you have any twins in your family?

Happy Birthday, Mom! (and other random things)

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Today is a very special day as it is Momma Gag’s birthday!!! I’m sure by the time she’s read this blog post, she has already had a day where she’s been spoiled by all of her friends, but she really deserves nothing less! I’m sure most of you regular B2B readers have seen my mom’s comments, which she does on almost every post, and I cannot thank her enough for her continued support in all my crazy adventures (there’s a new one that I’ll be sharing soon!!). I especially appreciate her always being there when I’ve “hit my wall” and call her in tears during the midst of a meltdown… there’s just something about talking to her that makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER! So mom, thank you for always being there for me and for being the cutest, sweetest, most fun mom around!

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(Like mother, like daughter… except I can’t even come close to holding my own around her!)

Anyway! I feel like I have lots of random things I want to share with you, mostly lots of pictures of sweet Emma at her 1st birthday party… gosh I just love that little girl. I headed home after teaching kickboxing on Saturday morning (I know, I know… you all probably think I go home all the time, but I hadn’t been home since the 4th of July! And, I love being home in Maine. Period. End of story:) ) and got caught in ridiculous amounts of traffic. Literally, I couldn’t even believe how much traffic there was. Shouldn’t people have been on the road early on Saturday to get to their vacation spots? Jeesh!

I finally made it to the party and couldn’t wait to snuggle all of my favorite babies! Zeke is literally a baby, not a newborn anymore. He has grown SO MUCH!

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And Sara seriously looks phenomenal. The “mom” thing looks great on her!

Emma was cruising around everywhere and watching her and Rozzie play together made me laugh so hard!

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Playing in buckets of ice… who knew how fun that could be?!

My favorite part was watching Emma go TO TOWN on her birthday cupcake!

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I so wanted to do the exact same thing, but people would have gave me weird looks so I contained myself 😉

After that, I met up with an old friend for dinner. We grabbed sushi and I would show you pictures, but there was really nothing picture-worthy about the food or drinks so I’ll spare you. The whole experience was hilarious, though, because nothing went right. One example, was when I asked the waitress what her favorite roll was (because I always do this when I go to restaurants- I want to know what the staff eats) and she responded “I don’t like fish so I’m not a good one to ask”. Ha! Why are you working at a sushi restaurant, then?! Anyway! Fun dinner other than that 🙂

Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day in Maine. Summer without humidity is the most amazing thing! I had Danielle take pictures and videos for me that I used in my burpee post that I posted yesterday and then we went on a nice walk/jog around Shapleigh. It was fun to do that together!

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We spent some of the afternoon at the Mahoney’s pool (my favorite place to spend hot, summer days!) and then grabbed an ice cream before hitting the road. It made me remember how much I love ice cream 🙂

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And, that’s about it for my random musings/weekend catch up!

 

Oh, except for I forgot to tell you that my parents got a new kitten! Renee (little Renny, as we call her) is just the sweetest little girl ever! So fun to play with a kitten instead of a big (fat) cat like Charlie!
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Questions for you: Do you ask servers what their favorite meal is when you go to a restaurant? Have you ever gotten a cake in the face? What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?

Scenes from Saturday

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Happy Weekending, everyone!

Ok, these were from Thursday, but I’m still counting them as “Scenes from Saturday” because I wanted to share them…

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{Beautiful run along Memorial Drive in Cambrige before teaching. Teaching class. Sweet Charlie snuggles. Flour granola- yum! My beautiful “M” necklace from my sister.}

Scenes from Friday…

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{Mom and dad came for lunch! Drinks and apps with Jessi at Olives in Charlestown.}

Finally scenes from Saturday!

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{Teaching a killer kickboxing class. Burpee seeds! A match made in heaven. Garden shopping at Home Depot. Lunch at Chipotle with Danielle. Seeds and other gardening supplies. Charlie on a leash- don’t ask. Final product of my potted plants! Before & after of the area beside our apt. My garden. Grocery goods & a delicious Sam Summer. Dinner- Chicken parm burgers & roasted broccoli.}

Questions for you: What was your Thursday, Friday or Saturday like? Do anything worth sharing?

Birthday Celebrations

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Ok, ok. I know. You’re probably all sick of hearing about my birthday, but I promise this is it! I want to have this as a reminder of how wonderful my birthday was this year. It was definitely one for the books. So many cards, texts, flowers, emails, Facebook notes… I feel SO blessed and loved. I wish it could be my birthday every day!

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Most of you probably saw how I spent my Saturday, but if you didn’t, go check it out! It was a busy day for sure, but it was fun because I was able to pamper myself a little! Saturday night, some of my closest girlfriends and I got all done up and headed to The Brahmin for dinner before other friends met up for drinking. The girls know me so well because Jessi, Danielle and Amy all got me Prosecco! Amy also got me flowers:)

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We headed to the Brahmin around 7pm so that we could eat and relax and not worry about the ridiculous line that forms there by, like, 9pm. It’s insane!

033The food was really quite tasty and we loved that it was all tapas style since we love sharing food! The waitress brought over shots and I think that’s what got me going to a drunken place I don’t tend to go! Luckily, I remembered dessert! 😉

020I was so happy to have so many friends around to make my birthday so special!

031And, a gym friend even came! Of COURSE we had to bring the guns out… it’s a gym thing.

030Not long after this, it was time for me to go home. Luckily, Rachel was nice enough and got me into a cab safely. THANK YOU, friend! JP sent me this photo the next day and it pretty much sums up the night and how happy I was:

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My parents came into the city on Tuesday for post-birthday celebrations. We totally lucked out and had gorgeous weather. The city was still a little somber after Monday’s Marathon events, and the security/police presence was bigger than I’ve ever seen it, but we still made the best of the day. I loved seeing all the marathon runners wearing their blue jackets. I wanted to run up and hug every one of them.

We opted to stay in the Faneuil Hall and North End part of the city, which was fine by me. We played tourist walking up and down along Quincy Market,

016and decided to have lunch at the Salty Dog. Lunch was delicious (I splurged on a fried catfish sandwich!), the beer (first Sam Summer of the season) was so refreshing, but the company was the best part!

025After lunch, we walked along the water and up the back end of Hanover street. My mom wanted to take some cannoli’s home, so obviously Mike’s Pastry was a necessary stop. I couldn’t believe it-the line was short! This is unheard of at this place. I got a red velvet cupcake and then later stopped and got a gelato. So tasty!

024All that walking around really made us thirsty, so a stop at Bell In Hand was a perfect place to quench our thirst before my parents went to catch their train at North Station.

020I was sad to see them leave, but so thankful that I got to spend such a fun day in the city with them. They are just the cutest little people around!

So, there you have it- my 28th birthday celebrations are FINALLY all documented! If you made it this far, thanks for sticking through this monster post!

Questions for you: What’s the most memorable birthday you’ve had? Do you play tourist in your city?