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May 22, 2006

My Birthday Weekend Part 2

Last night's entry had pictures of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday during the day, so now it's time for Saturday night. Kristina and I had planned a trip to Montreal for our birthday which got too complicated, turned into an overnight in NYC which got too expensive, and eventually became a dinner at a nice Greenwich restaurant. Unfortunately, not all our friends were able to come because of all the confusion, but we still had a nice group of thirteen of us. Kristina and I chose the restaurant Bleu, a French bistro on Greenwich Avenue that turns into a club around 10:30pm. The night was going to end after Bleu, but our amazing friend Ali invited us all over to her house afterwards for some outdoor beirut which was definitely one of the highlights of the evening.

The dinner reservations were at 9:30pm which we thought was appropriately European of us. Everyone arrived at my house around 9pm, but Cathy, Pat, Alberto, and Bridget came early, probably a little after 8pm. Once everyone arrived, we got ready to go and left for Bleu. We got to Bleu right on time and were all blown away by the ultra-trendy decor. Before dinner arrived, I took a bunch of pictures of the group, so here they are!

Cathy and Pat:

If you see Pat on crutches in any of the pictures, he broke his leg recently in a lacrosse game.

Bridget and Alberto:

Kristina, Vanessa, and Jenn:

Brent and Me:

We tried to get another nice picture of Cathy and Pat, but Pat took it from nice to very naughty.... The room was very dimly lit so no one else could see, but luckily I have a very bright flash. Don't worry, they're just pretending:

The birthday girls!!! For those of you who didn't read my last blog entry, Kristina and I share the exact same birthday so we planned this party together:

Greg and Ali:

Pat with his pomegranite martini (don't worry, he's 21):

Above our table, we had a really cool light fixture that was actually just a group of bare light bulbs brought together in a light bulb bouquet:

For those of you who have not been to Bleu, the bathrooms are definitely the best part of the restaurant (aside from the food). There are two giant bathroom stalls with completely clear glass walls, but when you go inside, you flick a switch and the glass immediately fogs up so that no one can see in. I got a before and after picture of Pat in the bathroom.

Before:

After:

That is way too much fun.

James and Molly:

Pat's very fizzy beer overflowing:

The food came quickly and everything was delicious. I had the salmon which was sitting on top of some sort of potato and vegetable thing and a pool of bernaise sauce, yum.... The one thing none of us could figure out, though, was the stuff on top. There was a small pile of little tiny circular green and orange things that sort of explode like bubble wrap in your mouth. If anyone has any idea what it is, let me know because I'm really curious!

My salmon:

The "bleu" bar:

After dinner, our waitress brought a scoop of ice cream with a candle in it for Kristina and me:

We sat around for a little bit while the club music played very loudly, and then decided it was time to head over to Ali's.

Leaving Bleu:

When we got to Ali's, someone had made "jungle juice" for us to drink, and we had a bunch of beers to play beirut with outside. Ali had a ping pong table out by her pool which made for a great 2-game 'rut (pronounced "root") table.

Brent and Pat:

Brent and Me:

The adorable mini Cosmopolitan drink set from Ali, Molly, and Vanessa (no one had to get us birthday gifts, but thank you so much!):

While I'm on the topic of gifts, I'd also like to thank Cathy for the adorable Vera Bradley purse and pink sweatpants and Pat for the very classy book he picked out, Kristina for the gorgeous "going out" shirt and the really fun lip-plumping gloss, Jenn for the J-Crew gift card (I'm so excited to go spend it!), and James for the delicious Godiva chocolate truffles which are completely gone now.

Anyway, Kristina and I had a really yummy Oreo cake at Ali's and everyone sang for us:

Jenn, Ali, Vanessa, and Molly:

James and Greg:

Kristina and Me:

Bridget and Alberto:

Cathy and Me:

Alberto, Brent, and Greg out by the beirut table:

The guys quoted their favorite comedian, Dane Cook, pretty much all night so I thought I should get at least one picture of them doing the "I just wanna dance!" bit:

Pat, Brent, and James:

James and Alberto:

Vanessa and Ali posing:

Bridget and Alberto:

I really like this "in-action" picture of Cathy and Me:

Cathy, Greg, and Kristina:

Brent got this picture of one of the balls in the air in front of the group:

The beirut group:

James and Alberto right after they won:

Vanessa, Molly, and Kristina:

The next few party shots are stolen from Cathy and Kristina's cameras.

Kristina, Molly, and Me:

Brent with my camera. He looks like such a... I don't know:

Ali and Vanessa:

Pat and Cathy (check out Brent in the background ruining their cute picture):

All the girls:

Everyone made fun of me for carrying my camera around my neck, so I posed for a "tourist picture" for them:

Kristina and Me:

Kristina, Cathy, and Me:

After a while, some people had to go home and the rest of us (who were sleeping over at Ali's) started winding down for the night. Here's Brent falling asleep while playing with one of those really confusing wood puzzles:

Cutest picture ever of Alberto and Bridget (I don't think they know I took this):

Cathy and Pat:

Greg, Ali, and Kristina:

Ali, Kristina, and Cathy:

Brent and I disagreed on which one of these next two pictures was better, so I put both up.

My favorite:

Brent's favorite:

Everyone watching MTV:

James and Brent:

It was really late and we were all getting tired, so we decided to find places to sleep. We were all scattered around Ali's house on various beds and couches, but Pat, Cathy, Brent, and I were all sleeping on a twin trundle bed in the bedroom where one of Ali's birds sleeps which was actually a lot of fun.

Brent and Pat setting up our bed:

Pat talking to the bird:

Brent and Me:

Cathy and Pat:

Alberto trying to start a pillow fight:

Cathy and Me:

Brent:

Alberto and Bridget posing for the picture:

Kristina and James on the couch:

Ali's bird:

The bird talked to us and even laughed at us, then reached it's foot out and grabbed Pat while he wasn't looking. It made for a very fun night... especially waking up to Brent and Pat having a farting competition. The next morning, Pat made his way down Ali's very steep driveway on crutches, and we all went home:

Pretty flower arrangement my mom made at our house:

Cathy, Pat, Brent and I soon met up at The Upper Crust Bagel Co. in Old Greenwich where we waited on a long line that went all the way out onto the sidewalk:

Brent farted again in line and it smelled AWFUL:

Bagels:

Brent's breakfast sandwich:

After breakfast, Brent and I went back to the park to look at the turtles and ducks again.

Two boy ducks:

Footprints in the mud:

We saw a really fat looking duck by the water's edge:

It turns out it wasn't fat at all, it was just protecting nine little ducklings under its wings:

Ducklings running into the confused turtles:

I love how cute and fuzzy they are:

Library reflection in the pond:

It was getting stormy out, so Brent and I took a quick drive around the beach to look at the clouds:

Beautiful home on the water:

A few minutes after getting home, Brent's parents arrived to pick him up on their way home from NYC. We had some pastries and talked for about an hour and a half before Brent had to leave =(

After Brent left, my dad and I drove back to the beach to look for goslings and rabbits, but only saw one rabbit on the whole trip. I got a couple cool pictures though.

Fisherman in the storm:

These next couple pictures are really cool because there were some thick clouds out over the water and you can actually see sheets of rain falling from them:

Last beach picture:

I actually took one more closer to the water, but the strong winds and big waves were spraying me with ocean water so I gave up and went back home.

I hope the 200+ pictures I put up in my last two entries will make up for the few days I didn't blog!

Posted by lauren at May 22, 2006 11:39 AM

Comments

Posted by: jocelyn at May 22, 2006 03:12 PM

Posted by: G and P at May 22, 2006 06:43 PM

Posted by: G and P at May 22, 2006 06:44 PM

Posted by: Molly at May 22, 2006 10:01 PM