Birthday Weekend

I never am much of a birthday person, but I sure do love my cabins!  Since we really have something to do almost every weekend, and it isn't tennis season, we decided this was a great weekend get away with friends and it conveniently fell the weekend after my birthday!  I was so excited to have friends come hang out for a couple days!

We hit the road on Friday around 3:30 so that we could get settled in before dark.  We made it just in time even after sitting in traffic for a bit, and we quickly got unpacked.  Joe and I had lovely company in the car since Kellie Ann was driving up with us as well as one of Joe's coworkers.  Joe and I had bought all the food so we had a car full of things to unpack!  Once we got settled in, Kellie Ann slowly started getting things prepared for dinner (it was fajita Friday) and the guys started trying to get a fire started.  Around 8, my brother, Duncan and Allie, and Reza arrived, just in time for dinner to be served.  We enjoyed fajitas, guacamole, buffalo chicken dip, beans, rice, and I am sure I am missing something!  We definitely had enough food!  After that, there was some Foosball played, a bonfire was made outside to relax around (although we had to go in after a while because it started raining) and we spent a lot of time enjoying the hot tub.  Amanda and Will finally made it around 10, and we played some card games (BS and an attempt at Go Fish)  Since we were all pretty worn out from a long work week and some people had quite a long drive, we headed to bed fairly early. 

So much food!

Everyone slowly got up the next morning and we got breakfast ready.  We kept it simple with eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, and bagels and of course had mimosas.  After breakfast, the prepared some of the things for "thanksgiving dinner" that night and then since the rain had stopped, we decided to go hiking!  The weather wasn't perfect, but we survived with only one small portion being super rainy!  Some of the girls made it 4 miles and the rest of the group did right around 3! 

Ready to Hike!

After we got back, it was time to sit back and relax.  We made burgers and hot dogs for lunch and finished the leftovers from the night before, then settled in for some football.  The girls enjoyed some time in the hot tub gossiping and catching up while others took afternoon naps.  Since we had eaten a super late lunch, we enjoyed the FSU/GT ACC championship game, and then had dinner during halftime.  We enjoyed a green bean casserole, cheesy mashed potatoes, turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing.  You can never have too much Thanksgiving!

 

Thank you for a wonderful weekend :)

Slowly everyone drifted to bed, and then got up in the morning to enjoy one last breakfast.  We enjoyed everyone company, then around 10 or so, we started packing up and hitting the road.  Domen left with my car keys so we were a bit delayed in leaving, but enjoyed some backgammon while we waited for him to get back.  It was such a fun and relaxing weekend and I am so grateful for the friends that had such a long drive to enjoy the weekend with me!  I couldn't ask for a better, more relaxing birthday weekend!

Thanksgiving Week

The fall season has come and gone in a blink of an eye and now we are coming onto our holiday season!  We have had such a busy fall with weekend getaways that the year has come to an end incredibly fast!  I am going to back track a little bit and cover some wonderful trips that we took.  We love going up to the mountains during the fall so we take any chance we can get to do so.  We always do a cabin weekend for my father in law's birthday in November, and this year it fell the weekend before Thanksgiving. After taking all Thanksgiving off and enjoying way too much food, we also decided to celebrate my birthday with some friends in a cabin in Blue Ridge (to be posted in the next post). 

For my father in laws birthday, we hit the road around 4 on Friday to make the drive up to the mountains.  The cabin was up in  Blue Ridge, and shortly after we arrived, Joe's parents and brother got to the cabin.  We relaxed and unpacked the car for a bit and then enjoyed some dinner.  Dinner was amazing ribs, brisket, cole slaw, and mac and cheese, prepared before we got to the cabin.  After dinner, it was time to cut the cake.  We enjoyed some cake, tea, and football before heading to the hot tub for a bit before bed time.

The recipe for the cake can be found here

  

The next morning we slept in and slowly got up.  Joe's mom made french toast and sausage while Joe got the fire going.  After breakfast, Joe and I went on a short hike before we got ready and headed to downtown Blue Ridge to explore.  After exploring the area, we enjoyed some hot chocolate before heading back to the cabin.  Once we got back, it was time for our 2nd annual wine tasting! We sampled 4 wines

After wine tasting we relaxed a bit before it was dinner time. Dinner was wonderful grilled steak, mashed potatoes, mushrooms, and I am sure more food.  It was all so good!  After dinner it was time for Yatzee.  Unfortunately I didn't win, but had such a fun time!  It was bed time before we knew it, so after some more hot tub time, we headed to bed!

The next morning we slowly got up and had waffles for breakfast, then hit the road.  Joe and I headed to Friendsgiving at Kristina's house which has become a tradition. We had made the stuffing to bring at the cabin, so we just warmed it up once we got to her house.  After enjoying friends and food, we headed home to enjoy Thanksgiving week!

I was off all week so life was good!  A lot of errands had to be run, and the house needed a good cleaning from top to bottom. We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving meal at the DiDias.  My parents drove down to Atlanta and my brother joined us.  It was so wonderful having the whole family together!  We enjoyed a fried turkey and a traditional one, lentils, potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, homemade bread, and so much more!  We also had an apple and chess pie for desert!

Kellie Ann and I got a hike in on Wednesday around Roswell Mill and didn't get lost.  

Joe and I picked up our tree from Pike and started the decorating process.

On Saturday we watched Georgia Tech football beat UGA in their rivalry game at Duncan's house after drinking our hearts fill of Mimosas and made sure all the dogs were wearing their best GT attire.   All in all, it was just a fun and relaxing week.   

Birthday Week!

So this week was an exciting week filled with travel, friends, and family.  This Monday I celebrated my birthday by hopping on a plane and heading to LA!  Joe and I had celebrated my birthday on Saturday night with a dinner at Atlanta Fish Market and he bought me a beautiful Michael Kors Watch and slippers to wear around the house since it is getting cold here and the hard woods make it even colder. He had wonderful intentions to take me to breakfast early Monday morning before I headed to the airport, but as the alarm went off and we heard it raining out, we decided to postpone the event.  The day started with the TSA guy checking IDs singing happy birthday to me (the whole song as everyone stood in the crazy long line since it was the Monday after Thanksgiving and the highest time for business travel) and then I got upgraded to First Class just because it was my special day :)

Landing in LAX it was a pleasant surprise to find I did not need my winter coat for the week!  After a day of calls, my good friend Kristen from GT who lives out in Anaheim drove over an hour to come and have birthday dinner with me!  We were going to go to a seafood place only to find out it was closed, but ended finding an amazing sushi place just down the street (Tokoro Sushi)!  After dinner we wondered into the coolest desert place ever!  So this is an ice cream cookie desert place and you get to choose from about 20 different cookie flavors (and yes they have samples of all of them) and then about 20 different ice cream flavors and make a custom ice cream sandwich!  The man at the store was so helpful and patient with us and explained all of the exotic fruits and spices going into some of the cookies and ice creams.  After desert I headed back to the hotel since I always stay on east coast time and go to bed super early!

Sushi Dinner with Kristen :)

Ice Cream Sandwiches!!!

Tuesday was another busy day but at the end of the day I met up with Johnnie who was also a swimmer at GT living near where my hotel was.  We headed to a Japanese BBQ place and it was also such a cool experience!  Gyu Kaku was the restaurant, and you have your own personal grill that you get to grill all sorts of meats and veggies on.  We ordered quite an assortment and loved catching up!  Wednesday I was down in Anaheim for the night (right next to Disney) so I met up with Kristen again and we finally got some seafood at McCormick and Schmicks.  It was amazing and then we headed to Rocky Mountain Chocolate for desert.  It was so good seeing friends on my travels this past week, especially since it was my birthday week.

It was finally time to decorate our Christmas tree with what ornaments we had so that it would start looking more Christmasy in our house.  We put up the ornaments we had bought the weekend before and the lights, but realized we still needed a star/angel/bow to put on top.  We figure that could get bought at a later date, but we had fun decorating our first tree together!

Our Tree and Houses :)

Friday morning, Joe and I finally went on our breakfast date at White House in Buckhead, which was amazing.  He got biscuits and gravy with fried chicken and I got the gyro omelet.   Both were absolutely amazing and it was fun to get to celebrate my birthday with him a little late.  Before we knew it, it was the weekend and time to relax.  After Joe got home from work we went shopping for some Christmas stuff before heading to bed fairly early since it had been a long week for me.  We were up and at it early in the morning on Saturday and headed to the Dekalb Farmers Market to explore because it is such a fascinating place.  There are so many fish, spices, meats, fruits, veggies, etc. that we had never heard of so we had a lot of fun shopping.  We finished up grocery shopping at the international market on pleasant hill before heading home to relax a bit.  After getting a workout in, my parents arrived from Greenville so we caught up with them for a bit, talked about the wedding and planned what new projects we had wanted to do at our house. After a while, my mom had brought my birthday "cake" that she had baked that morning for us to enjoy, so that I did not have to go without that cake that I had had every birthday since I can remember.  It actually isn't a cake, it is a sweet bread similar to challah bread, but I wasn't a huge fan of cake growing up so my mom always made the bread in a circle shape and put candles in it for my birthday!  It is such a fun tradition and I always enjoy the "cake". Before we knew it, it was time to get ready for the Slovenian Christmas Party.

This was the second annual party, but my company Christmas party was the same time as this one was last year.  My parents had gone the year before, so Joe and I decided we might as well join to meet more of the Slovenian people in Atlanta.  We had so much fun doing a white elephant exchange, meeting so many new people from Atlanta, and catching up with others that we had met before. My parents also got to catch up with many friends they had known while we lived in Douglasville when we were younger.

My parents :)

Sunday morning we ate breakfast with my parents then headed up to Roswell to go to church with my parents and Joe's parents at St. Ann's.  After the mass we got to talk to the musician that will be doing our wedding who is absolutely amazing!  It was nice to get him confirmed and booked so that we had one more thing done on our wedding to do list.  After church we headed to Joe's parents house and we enjoyed tea/coffee/water before my parents headed home to Greenville.  After my parents left, Matt and Kim came over to Joe's parent's house so that we could all decorate the tree together before eating an early dinner. This week and weekend flew by but it was such a great time celebrating my birthday with friends and family.  Now, a week from home is just what I need, even if I will be on my own!