Sunday, February 5, 2012

Happy Birthday, Jenny!

Just like last year, the winos (minus new momma Shelb) converged on Raleigh to celebrate the birthday of the fabulous Jenny.  This was a big birthday too… the big 3-0!  I love what Jess said about our get together, so I’m just going to straight up plagiarize her: “Words cannot describe what glimmers of happiness fall on this otherwise dreary winter month when we are together.” (Jess, if I knew how to use EndNote I would create a proper reference for you.) 

We had dinner at a great Mexican place, Dos Taquitos, on Friday night in downtown Raleigh.  There was a long wait for dinner, but luckily we had months of conversations to catch up.  Well, sort of.  We email every day (yes, every day) so we’re all pretty caught up on each other’s lives…but some stories are so good, we reserve them until we’re together in person. 

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I swear I actually did take some people-pictures at dinner, but I didn’t have the flash turned on on my phone so they didn’t come out good.  So, look! Food!  (It was good – tacos carnitos!)

Saturday morning, we lounged around at Emily’s house and got to spend some quality time with our wino niece, Claire, who just turned one (one!!!) a few weeks ago.  She is an absolute doll.  Doggy Coleman had to get in some snuggle time too, of course.

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Later on, we went to grab lunch and watch yet another miserable Wake Forest basketball game.  Actually, our seats ended up being in a spot where the TV was really hard to see and none of us complained.  Sometimes it’s better just not to watch these things unfold. 

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Before dinner, Jenny took us to this great place in downtown Raleigh called The Raleigh Wine Shop that did tastings.  You loaded a card and paid per the ounce to taste various wines.  I’ve just started noticing places like this popping up and I think it’s absolutely genius.  There was even a couch in the back with crayons and a coloring table – I’m not really sure what audience they were aiming for, but I took it upon myself to tap into my crafty side.

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After the tastings, we had dinner at Humble Pie (a tapas restaurant) and then went out downtown to eek every little last bit of celebration out of the night. 

Weekend getaways with your best friends always go way too fast, and Sunday morning was here before I knew it.  We’d been counting down to this trip for so long and by Monday all of us were emailing that we had post-wino-vacay-blues.  I’ve been best friends with these girls for over a decade now (!!) and when we get together, it’s as if the time and distance since our last visit vanishes and we pick right up where we left back off.  I am so blessed with their friendships, and I’m so thankful that we each make the effort to get together a couple times of year since college.  I’m glad we were there to ring in Jenny’s 30th with her, and I’m already counting down to our next getaway. 

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