Red-Letter Birthday Weekend

Dress: A. Byer via Amazon | Belt: taken from another dress | Shoes: Fluevog Liz (Kitschy Kitschy Boom Boom family)

I feel the need to share my deep gratitude for some wonderful friends and family who made my birthday extend into the last days of April. Last Friday, my parents-in-law visited us, bringing some super-sweet Camarillo strawberries and fun food items from a recent trip to New Orleans (including beignet mix!), and took us out to lunch at BJs. They'd already had my big present shipped to our house, an awesome shoe cubby bench for our entryway, which they got to use during their visit.

But the big day was on Saturday when E and M dressed up and joined me for a fancy, delicious dinner at Fresco II, a Mediterranean/Italian restaurant none of us had tried before. Of course, M and I wore some of our favorite Fluevogs to help celebrate (in the photo above, M is wearing her Operetta: Bartoli boots that I blogged about here, and I'm wearing my KKBB: Liz maryjanes once again ... and we should get E into a Fluevog store soon!). The food and service were fantastic; we recommend the chicken marsala, four-cheese tortellini, eggplant Parmesan, as well as the mushroom appetizer and bell pepper salad. But my favorite part hands-down was the conversation. I love these ladies so much! We followed up dinner with several hours of contra dancing (well, E played the flute in the live band for us), which was super fun and required a lot of athleticism this time around. I definitely broke a sweat. During the break, M surprised me by bringing out some amazing finger desserts -- mini cheesecakes, coffee cakes, and cannoli -- and making me blow out candles! Everyone at the dance was so nice, singing "Happy Birthday" accompanied by guitar, and I loved that our families were there with us to celebrate, too. Many, many thanks to my dear friends for making me feel so special! (And for the wonderful presents that just seem superfluous to their friendship.)

Sunday was spent quietly at home with my two guys, watching movies and eating together. My husband did all the errands, including the grocery shopping which I usually do because he dislikes it so much. So I got to stay home and bum around, clean up occasionally, read for fun, play Candy Crush on my iPhone, and generally do what I felt like doing. It was a luxurious way to end a red-letter weekend. Hugging myself at the memory... :-)

Happy May!

xo, Gladys