Party Like a Rock Star

So - the big 3-0 Birthday Party was a week ago and we're ALIVE! We had a great time and all went well! Here is a recap of the weekend!

Wednesday: Mom arrived on Wednesday and we headed to a neighborhood Italian restaurant for a bite to eat for dinner.

Dinner at E'Angelo

Thursday: Lindsay and Jon arrived on Thursday and I picked them up at SFO with this sign. Just one day prior, Lindsay landed a NEW JOB!!! She starts this week at a non-profit organization geared toward teaching underprivileged youth the skills and lessons of golf and life. We are SO proud of her!

Congratulations, Lindsay!

I opened gifts while enjoying champagne at home prior to dinner. Lindsay, Jon, Dave and I agreed to adjust our gift-giving strategy starting with Xmas of 2007, and instead of giving each other traditional gifts, we have begun a savings account in ING called "Let's Go!" and it has become a vacation fund for us to use to go away together in the near future. We agreed to put $100 per person into the account per birthday and $100 per person for Xmas, so that we'd save $1600 per year towards our vacation fund. I love seeing it grow and grow!
The biggest surprise gift was from Dave's family. We did our first Video Chat with them via our first-born (aka Dave's MacBook Pro) and it was awesome. The gift they sent was for both of our 30th birthdays (Dave's is Aug. 28th) and it blew us away. They sent us a gift certificate for a restaurant called French Laundry up in Napa...a restaurant by famed chef, Thomas Keller. French Laundry is one of those dream life experiences...I say life experience because the tab - before tax and wine - is $240 per person! I don't think I can possibly do the description justice, so check out their website and their Yelp reviews. Now we just have to get the reservation!
Back to the birthday celebration.... After the gift-opening experience, we then headed to dinner at Bistro AIX (another neighborhood place that we hadn't yet tried). We sat in their outdoor courtyard and had a delicious meal!


Dinner at Bistro AIX

Mom then went back to her hotel and "the kids" went to Matrix Fillmore (yet ANOTHER neighborhood place I hadn't been to yet!). It's a great lounge/music bar on Fillmore where we enjoyed a couple of martinis before heading home.


Dave and Jon at Matrix Fillmore

Friday: Friday was the big day of the party! Lindsay, Jon and I went on my "normal" Friday 4-mile run along the Marina towards the Golden Gate Bridge and back. It was a lovely morning and I really enjoyed sharing this part of my life with them! After the run, it was lunch and then work time to get the apartment whipped into shape for the party that night. With 5 able bodies, we had everything done about an hour prior to the party start time and we could sit back to relax and enjoy some champagne before guests arrived! With space constraints and minimal "party-friendly" furniture, we set up a bar utilizing two stacked tupperwares and lined them with a white tablecloth, then laid out the majority of food and bar items on our dining room table which we pushed to the back window. Lindsay created cute food tags to describe the yummy treats.


Party Set Up








Jaime, Lindsay, me and Valerie


Dave and Mama at the party


Me and Jaime

My favorite part of the "decor" wavers between the Apple TV, which had a rotating photo slideshow that we created, including photos of every single party guest, and the chalkboard, which was transformed into a tribute to ---- ME!





We somehow fit everyone in the apartment and enjoyed ourselves until about 10:30/10:45, when it was time to leave the "40-year-old party" of cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, and hit up the "20-year-old party" of dancing at Gravity! First things first - I had to change into my "20-year-old" party outfit with my new shared-initial namesake...Big Black t-shirt (yes, from MTV's "Rob & Big" fame)



We had a fun time at Gravity, dancing and enjoying every moment of being with friends!






All in all, it was a really fantastic weekend celebration! For more photos (do you really need more after this novel of a blog post? YES!), check out the photo gallery.


Thank you, love!.