Birthdays

Birthdays!  

We are a couple of ladies who really enjoy celebrating our birthdays and we celebrate in style all month long, December for Heather and January for Kate!  We get to start and finish each calendar year in full birthday month celebration…and yes we did say all month long!  We don’t shy away from our birthdays or worry that at the turning of another year we have not done this or that, whatever this or that may be.  Possibly there could be more of something, anything, everything! But we have all we need and we have all that matters-awesome families, friends and husbands.  For those 3 reasons and so many more we celebrate turning another year better for the whole month!

You may not take our approach to birthday celebrations but on your birthday we hope you will or at least take the whole day to celebrate yourself! As we require all our family and friends to celebrate in some (but not all) of our birthday month celebrating, we do try to make their birthdays recognized and special and let them know how much we love them and how awesome they are on their respectful birthdays. It isn’t always all about us!

A must have for birthday celebrating is at least one HAPPY HOUR but additional happy hours may always be added!  For Kate’s birthday HH we went to Xtra’s in Carytown.  We highly recommend it!  While there we came up with an idea on how to rank HH spots, stay tuned for our extremely sophisticated ranking system to be unveiled in the coming weeks. Xtra’s Happy Hour deals are pretty good with ½ off wine by the glass, $2.50 well drinks, $2 off drafts and $5 appetizers.  Since we are working toward our weight lose goals of shedding a few pounds we cannot confirm or deny we ate the appetizers, however, we can confirm our friends said the wings, spring rolls, and a plate of life changing Canadian style cheese fries were scrumptious.  They may not be life changing cheese fries but they are awesome.

As Kate’s birthday fell on a weekend she also gets to have the all cherished birthday weekend. Since a lot of cooking wasn't going to happen at the house, she & her hubby dinned at The Mill, Comfort and Northside Grill. Other birthday treats included a visit to the salon (what grays?), seeing Spamalot at the Carpenter Center (Center Stage)*, hiking on Sunday thanks to the great weather, and outlet shopping.  A second HH is scheduled for Friday at Selba’s for those unable to make the first. This HH is also to celebrate our friend Nicole's birthday.

*As Southern girls who came to know Richmond because it was our transplant home and now just home, we have in a very Richmond-er way adopted the ability to refer to Richmond locations by what they were called when we moved here or what we remember when visiting as children. Therefore, the Carpenter Center will always be the Carpenter Center. We appreciate Center Stage but it will always be the Carpenter Center to us. That new restaurant will always be where the old one was, the Landmark will always be the Mosque etc etc etc.

In non-birthday celebrating news, we had sewing class tonight and aced it!  Seriously, we were given a verbal A+!  We learned several practical and useful skills. Now we just have to take the steps to starting the first sewing project.  You will know when it happens!

On the list for this week, we hope to jump start our weight loss by participating in a friends and family Diet Bet which not only motivates us to lose weight but to gain money! You should encourage your friends and family to try the Diet Bet, check it out http://www.dietbet.com/.  We also plan on checking out some local races in hopes to set a goal of running, or at least fast walk, a few miles in a row. In the weeks to come we plan on trying everything we can to meet our weight loss goals and share them with you. We'll hope you’ll join us on our journey to smaller pants!

Cheers,

K&H