Birthdays

We were planning on going out for Dem's birthday but family comes first and so they had family birthday dinner on Friday and since she had been up since 1 am, after-dinner plans were canceled.

Georgia's birthday celebration on Saturday went off without a hitch. Well, Sue did have a slight fashion emergency but we fixed that within an hour. And I found out that Sue is a shop-till-you-drop kind, too! I can't wait to go shopping with her sometime!

Ryan, Julius and I made all the birthday plans. I took care of the dinner train plans, Julius took care of lunch and Ryan melded everything together. Lunch was awesome. He did a crab pot: a steaming pot of crab legs, clams, prawns, potatoes, corn and sausages. Damn that was good!! Then Garrett beat me to it and asked Julius to marry him; I was too busy chomping my way through some corn. After lunch was presents time! With Ryan the Program Dictator directing everyone, we all took pictures with the birthday girl and our respective presents. Ryan also came up with the idea of everyone designing a page (or four, as Sue did) to go into a scrapbook for Georgia. It was a great idea, and it turned out SO well. She loved it.

After lunch, we played several rounds of Pit. That game is TOO funny. We love it!!! After that, we started getting ready for dinner. We were going on the Spirit of Washington - Dinner Train. The original plan was the Murder Mystery but they'd already filled up by the time we booked. I was afraid we wouldn't have enough tickets (there were 12 of us going) but everyone managed to get a ticket. We had to dress up for dinner: Sue and Georgia got ready in Georgia's room while Ryan, Heather, Tabitha and I were in Ryan's room. Dem, Mike, Garrett, Matt and Julius were already dressed and Tammy was meeting us at the train depot. Ryan couldn't choose between three different shirts while I had brought three different outfits to choose from. Heather and Tabby were much more decisive though.

The dinner train experience was fantastic! I don't get motion sickness so I was okay with the rocking and slight bouncing but poor Heather couldn't finish most of her food. Despite that, we had a blast and the food was delicious. I loved the herb cream cheese spread with the bread, the poppy seed vinaigrette with the salad and the apricot glaze on the salmon. It was too bad that it gets so dark so early now because halfway through the trip, it became pitch-black outside and we couldn't see a thing. When we stopped at Lake Kapowsin, we trooped down to the open car at the end to try and see the scenery. The lake was a bit visible, with the moon reflecting its light on it, and we saw a TON of stars. Other than that, we couldn't see much else. The trip back saw the desserts and dessert drinks come out. That choices were Chocolate Paradiso and Washington Apple Crisp. Chocolate for me, of course! I finished every little crumb.

We wrapped up that night back at Ryan and Georgia's, where we played with Darien, her cat, for a while. I dropped Mike, Garrett and Matt back on Capital Hill, Dem at home and I went home and passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. It was a great day and it got me thinking that I should start thinking about ideas for my 25th birthday. Vegas, perhaps?