Tag Archives: birthday

Tiki Hut Party

Posted on April 29, 2013 | 6 Comments

Hi! It’s been a while. Possibly you noticed I took a week off blogging. I don’t really have a reason for this, except I was busy and I’ve had this stupid cold for a week that I can’t shake and I just kind of felt like hibernating from the internet. Today is the first day I can almost breathe properly and I can somewhat taste food again. It’s been a good time.

Also, to be honest, blogging was a lot easier when I talked about what I ate and did all day. Food = easy content. Now that I don’t really do that, sometimes I just don’t know what to say. I think it’s probably better to not post anything at all than rave on about nothing exciting, ya know?

But I saw all my pals on Saturday night, and not only did they give me crap for not updating my blog, they recharged my blogging batteries. So I’m baaaaaaack. And I am going to try to be a better blogger.

Back to Saturday. These two lovers recently moved into a new love nest.

Mark and Dawn

Last week was also Mark’s birthday, so the two of them hosted a good old fashioned house party at their new pad on Saturday night in celebration. Evan and I showed up around 9:30 ready to get the party started.

Dawn and Mark’s new house is gorgeous. Just beautiful. And I am extremely jealous of their backyard, which includes a pool and a tiki hut.

An actual tiki hut. That is my DREAM. I used to build a similar tiki hut next to the pool in the backyard of my Sims houses, and set it up similarly with a BBQ and outdoor cooking space. Next to the dance floor of course, so my Sims had a good space to get their party on. All my Sims’ neighbours would have the time of their lives, and then Drew Carey would show up.

I’m sorry if you don’t know what I’m talking about. But man, I miss the Sims. Now I wanna play it.

Anyway, I love the tiki hut, and I hope to spend a lot of time hanging out in it this summer.

So the party was a good time. There was a pretty decent snack table, but because I couldn’t really taste anything for maybe the first time in my life I did minimal food-table stalking. My plan was to just drink my cold right out of me, and since I am feeling better today I am going to say my plan worked. So I just spent my time working on that and catching up with everyone.

Our old English teacher Marni dropped by, and it was once again really great to see her.

We all talked about how sad we are that our little school is closing. At the end of the night we decided we should get a Cartwright HS photo with everyone who was still getting their party on (Lisa and Joanna had left a bit earlier).

Khalil at the back didn’t actually go to our school, but we let him slip in the picture because he makes us laugh hard.

Since Dawn and Mark now have a pool there was a definite pool theme going on. Emily and Corey got them a couple lifeguard signs to adorn their new backyard, and there were some inflatables and water wings hanging around.

We also found a replacement for Troy.

He is ready for the pool.

And we snuggled with Mark and Dawn’s amazing dog Miyou.

I thought Evan was going to sneak her in my purse…

Best friends.

Dawn made Mark a pretty hilarious birthday cake, which I cannot show you because it is wildly inappropriate.

But Mark enjoyed it. I did also, even though I couldn’t taste it. I still knew I was eating icing so I could imagine the deliciousness.

I enjoy a good house party, and it was a really great night with all my pals.

I hope you guys had a great weekend!

→ 6 Comments

Posted in Pals

Tagged birthday, sims, tiki hut

Ice Ice Baby

Posted on March 25, 2013 | 15 Comments

Happy Birthday to my good friend Joanna, who is joining me in the big 3-0 club today!

It’s nice to have company here. I don’t feel as old.

Every year Joanna throws quite the party celebrating her big day, and you may remember me blogging about it. Two years ago we all took a limo downtown to the club MUZIK…

Last year we again went downtown and hit up Spice Route for dinner before venturing over to Century Room.

Actually it was the night the saxophone first made an appearance.

This year Joanna planned a night out for us all in Niagara Falls. Exciting times!

It was fuuuuuun.

Joanna’s birthday’s each year are pretty much the only time my friends and I go out to an actual club, so it is very exciting and we definitely make the most of it. My beautiful high school ladies were all in attendance.

For dinner we started at Copacabana, a Brazilian steakhouse in downtown Niagara Falls, which I actually went to for my 30th birthday also, only I went to the one in Toronto. For Jo’s birthday we were there on Saturday night (aka party night) so they had live Brazilian dancers as entertainment.

My phone didn’t really capture their essence, but you get the idea. The dancers were BEAUTIFUL.

Especially the ladies. Their bodies were so healthy and fit looking. And they actually look like they ate, which I appreciate.

For dinner I just got the buffet and skipped the meat altogether because all-you-can-eat meat is bad news for me. I would have eaten all the meat. I wouldn’t have been able to stop. When Evan and I were there I ate meat for two hours, basically needed someone to wheelbarrow me home afterwards, and then I fell asleep at 9pm.

But I remembered how awesome the buffet was, so I was good with that.

Sorry about the mess that is that plate. I basically piled it up with everything. I also discovered that they have the best chicken lasagne I have ever tasted. It was so amazing. I hit that up for my second plate, plus more of that delicious cheese bread that I also enjoyed so much last time.

After we were all done eating, our server brought over Joanna’s birthday cake.

Check this thing out:

Hooooly moly. That cake is ridiculous! How are you even supposed to get into that thing? I didn’t know, but Joanna managed.

Joanna and that cake are basically the same size.

The cake was delicious. The flavour was banana Nutella.

BANANA. NUTELLA. Amazing. That is what dreams are made of right there.

We had a lot of ladies packed in there!

We hijacked a couple of the male dancers into that group shot. They liked us.

It was good to see allllll the ladies, some I only see once a year at Jo’s birthday. Like this cheeky minx:

Dinner was really funy, but the party train didn’t stop there! From Copacabana we all walked over to the Dragonfly Nightclub, where Jo had a booth reserved for us.

Bottle service is a good time. It’s a rare occurrence overhere because I’m not that fancy, so I make sure to enjoy the experience.

The night before Jo’s birthday I was out for dinner with my friends Bri and Leah who I hadn’t seen in forever, and our server (whose name was also Lindsey) mentioned she was also going to Niagara Falls on the same night as us, and going to the same club, also for her friend’s birthday. Holy coincidence, Batman. And then she told me Vanilla Ice was going to be there.

You should have seen my reaction to that news. I nearly died. I immediately Googled this information to see if it was real, because it just felt too good to be true. But it was. Vanilla Ice was going to be at the Dragonfly. In the flesh.

We kept waiting for him to appear all night but he wasn’t showing. We were getting a little antsy. Finally around midnight or so Dawn and I went on a little tour of the VIP area. And looky looky who we ran into…

VANILLA ICE! Ahhhhahaha. Craziness. He was very nice, so we brought all the girls back for a picture.

Though he was nice, there were certain things he was not down with… We asked him if we could pick him up, but he was not having that at all. He was very firm with his no, in fact. And then he was telling the girls in front that they needed to crouch down a bit because they were blocking his face, and Emily said to him “Do you wish you were a little bit taller?” and asked him if he wanted to wear her heels. He again said no. He wasn’t really impressed with that. But I still think he liked us, and he gave us all a shot, so that was nice.

I am not exactly sure what Vanilla Ice was there to do…I guess just make an appearance. We assumed he would be performing a bunch of songs, but that didn’t happen. Eventually he did sing Ice Ice Baby, but he just sang along to the song when it was playing from behind the bar.

It was still pretty cool though. I braved the mob of people and got right up in there.

Such a fun time with all the ladies.

As it always is whenever we go anywhere.

And I’m currently writing this from the airport. It is Florida time! I’m not sure if I’ll be blogging much while I’m gone, as I won’t really have the internet and I want to spend as much time outside in the sunshine as possible. But you never know! There will definitely at least be some shenanigans recapping. And thanks for your recommendations! I’ll be hitting up several of them for sure.

→ 15 Comments

Posted in Pals, Restaurant

Tagged birthday, copacabana, niagara falls, the dragonfly nightclub, vanilla ice

Mr. B’s Big 60

Posted on March 11, 2013 | 13 Comments

Hanging out with your high school teachers is apparently becoming a weekly occurrence over here. Last weekend we brought Marni, our high school English teacher, out to the bar with us, and this Saturday we partied down with our favourite high school music and history teacher, Mr. B.

He looks ready to party, right? It was his birthday! The big 6-0! Exciting day.

We have kept in touch with Mr. B over the years, and try to get together with him about once a year. He and his lovely wife Jan hosted a dinner party for us at their house this past September…

And last March we all met for dinner at Baton Rouge.

Whenever I mention to people that we are hanging out with our former high school teacher, they usually give me a weird face. But I would consider Mr. B our friend, and I think I have to attribute this to the size of our high school. Everyone was friends with everyone.

It still feels weird to call him John though. He will forever be Mr. B.

Anyway, in celebration of Mr. B’s 60th milestone, Jan held a surprise party at Safari Bar and Grill in Ajax and invited all of Mr. B’s best pals. Including us, his favourite students. He thought he was just going out for dinner with family, so imagine his surprise when he walked in and saw all of our bright shining faces.

Mr. B is a rosy-cheeked gem. And it was SO good to see Allison and Sam in the front. I maybe see Allie about once a year, and I’ve kept in touch with Sam but I don’t think I have actually seen her since high school. I have missed both of their beautiful faces!

And we all just love Jan. She is so nice, and she and Mr. B are such beautiful lovers.

We were really excited to be included on the guest list. I was even more excited once I saw this spread.

Fries, sweet potato fries, and chicken wraps! Yes yes and yes. A ton of pizza was brought out a bit later, but I forget to get a pic of it. I assume you’ve all seen pizza before, so you can probably imagine. I had several wraps, a few slices of pizza, and some sweet potato fries and I was just loving my life.

There was a pretty awesome Simpsons cake also (Mr. B is a diehard Simpsons fan), but the one picture I have of it Mr. B is blowing out the candles and it is so blurry you can’t even tell what’s going on. It was really good, you’ll have to just trust me on that.

I brought Evan along for the ride, as he and my friends have taken quite a shining to each other and I wanted to introduce him to Mr. B

Mr. B reads my blog so he knew who he was and immediately came over to him and said “You must be Evan. I have been looking out for this girl for a looooong time, so if you don’t treat her well I will hunt you down like a dog!”

This made both Evan and I laugh quite hard. But Evan is the nicest, so no worries there.

Mr. B is funny when he acts like our dad. It reminded me of the time in Grade 9 when Mr. B got a boy in trouble for squirting Ketchup on my jacket.

And speaking of Mr. B reading my blog, he is kind of my blogging moral compass. He is an upstanding young gentleman, so if I am unsure about writing something about my shenanigans with my friends I will think to myself “Would Mr. B find this funny?” If the answer is yes, I will post it.

Because he tells me that he likes that we like to have good, clean fun…

And that makes me laugh.

Anyway, it was great to see everyone, and it was a really fun night!

We hope you had a great 60th Mr. B!

→ 13 Comments

Posted in Pals, Random Musings

Tagged birthday, friends, high school, mr. b, safari

30th Shenanigans

Posted on March 5, 2013 | 11 Comments

While Friday night was a good eating relaxed time, Saturday was party time.

I don’t typically do a lot for my birthday because I don’t really like to plan things for myself and I don’t really like being the centre of attention. That probably sounds funny because I have a blog where I guess I am basically the centre of attention, but an entire event for just me where people have to sing me happy birthday and stuff makes me feel uncomfortable.

But since it was my 30th, it was kind of a big deal, and I definitely wanted to go out. I originally was thinking about having a night out in Toronto, but since most of my good friends live out of the city it didn’t seem very convenient for everyone. I just wanted to hang with my best pals. When Dawn offered to host at her and Mark’s love shack, I immediately took her up on that offer.

So the plan was to hang out at Dawn and Mark’s until about 10:30 and then go to a local bar in Whitby called the Tap that we have been going to since we were freshly 19.

As I was getting ready for our big night out (I curled my hair which takes me forever because my hair doesn’t like it), Evan was having a spectacular napular on my couch. When I came out and saw this going on my heart just about melted into a puddle on the floor.

Oh Winnie you saucy little minx. She LIVES to nap and was very grateful for a mid-afternoon nap partner. Lovers.

Anyway, my dad and stepmom Mona live pretty close to Dawn, so we stopped by there first for dinner.

Hello beautiful carbs.

A giant plate of spaghetti before you have to squeeze into a dress and are expected to drink quite a lot was probably not the best of ideas. But my dad makes the best spaghetti sauce of all time and I just couldn’t resist. It tastes like my childhood. Also I heard he slaved over that sauce for an entire day, so I cleaned that plate. Like my pasta the day before, not a noodle left behind.

They also got me the most delicious birthday cake.

Normally my birthday cake of choice is vanilla with buttercream icing, but this cake was AMAZING. It was all chocolately and delicious, and though I was pretty full from the spaghetti I somehow managed to squeeze in two pieces. I loved it.

We hung out there for a couple of hours and then made our way over to Dawn and Mark’s, where I wrestled my full body into a dress for our night out.

I was really excited for Evan to hang out with all my crazy friends. He had met Dawn, Mark, Emily, and Corey last weekend at the hunting camp, but I wanted him to experience us in a going out setting with all our crazy props.

Dawn and Emily got me a bunch of animal masks for my birthday, and Spongebob waterwings (which, yes, we brought to the bar) as well as a bunch of other amazing random things, like sparklers and silly string. I loved it all (especially the silly string, new favourite bar prop).

So that would explain this picture of wild animals I posted yesterday.

I think my favourite part of the evening was Marni, our high school English teacher, came out to celebrate! (she’s in the tiger mask) We reconnected with her recently and she came to Dawn and Mark’s tropical Jack & Jill also.

She’s beside me in that pic. Marni is the cutest. I was so glad she came, it was great to see her!

As I have mentioned before, we went to an extremely small school and became friends with a couple of our teachers. You may remember we have also hung out with our music and history teacher Mr. B on several occasions, and actually had dinner at his house this summer.

Marni regaled us all with tales of our high school antics. She told us we were the craziest class she taught and no one has compared to us since. I will take as a compliment, as we all managed to stay on the honour roll while being crazy. It’s possible to be weird while keeping your priorities straight.

To celebrate Marni’s appearance, we took a picture with everyone who attended Cartwright high school.

Marni is between my friend Lisa and I. Our school was really good times. It is closing after this year and I am really sad about it. But more about that another time.

I think Evan had a good time hanging out with everyone.

And Dawn had a good time hanging out with Bolt.

I just wanted to post that picture. Bolt is such a snuggler. He’s like a cat.

Anyway, we hung out for a while until it was bar time!

I love that Emily brought Gummy Bears to the bar. I also love that Evan is purposely not looking at the camera. Also, I am not wearing a choker, my birthday tie is just backwards.

We also met up with these beauties.

Who I enjoy quite a lot. And I would just like to tell you that they LOVED the silly string.

And again, we love Marni.

Anyway, no big stories. But it was a really fun night with all my pals. And former teacher. And lover. Definitely a good 30th!

→ 11 Comments

Posted in Dinner, Pals

Tagged birthday, friends, night out, teacher

30th Eats

Posted on March 4, 2013 | 11 Comments

My 30th on Friday got off to a good start when I arrived at work in the morning and my fellow communications girls had left this for me:

They know that food is the way to my heart. I think TimBits are pretty much the greatest things ever invented, and in that little box was the most delicious chocolate mousse tart. I like my coworkers a lot.

I like them so much that I let them take me to lunch that afternoon.

Those cheeky minxes are Melissa and Emily.

We went to Terroni, a cute little Italian restaurant not far from our work.

We started with bread, which came with olive oil, and we also requested hot peppers on the side.

What is it that is so insanely delicious about white bread? I can never say no to it. I think it might be my favourite food.

For my lunch I ordered the Tagliatelle alla Bolognese.

And I LOVED it. Did not regret my decision at all. I ate the entire thing. Not one noodle left behind.

I was incredibly full afterwards, and as we were walking back to work I was telling the girls that I had a dinner date with Evan after work and I didn’t know how I was going to manage that because I felt like I might not ever be able to eat again.

I don’t know why I was concerned about this though, because eating is never a problem for me. I can eat at any time. And by the time 5:30 rolled around I was more than ready to go again.

Evan had planned a surprise birthday dinner for me and wouldn’t tell me where we were going until it was time for me to meet him. He just told me to dress nice but not too fancy, and comfortably because I may not be sitting down the entire time. I was intrigued by his random requirements, but I tried my best to meet them. I thought about Googling places in the area we were going, but I do genuinely like surprises so I was able to refrain.

He ended up taking me to CopaCobana, a Brazilian steakhouse around Yonge and Eglinton that I had never been to before.

CopaCobana is not just any old steakhouse though, it’s all you can eat meat!

And salad bar also, which Evan and I started with.

They had some pretty good selections and I filled my plate up.

Times two. I loved the quinoa salad, the mussels, and that bread with the cheese INSIDE in particular. Could not get enough of those. The bread especially was ridiculous and was actually about 10 times better than I expected it to be.

We also ordered traditional caipirinhas, Brazil’s national cocktail.

Which I have never had before, and I really liked.

But what I was really excited for, was the meat.

So much meat excitement. If my reaction to the meat selections was a gif I’m pretty sure it would look like this:

Because the meat selection was ridiculous and I could not get over it.

I’m pretty sure the only meat on that coaster we didn’t try was suckling pig, salmon, and chimichurri steak.

And you don’t even have to get up to get the meat. Very convenient. Servers come to your table with perfectly tender seasoned meat on rods and they shave it off for you with basically a machete.

You just grab it with your tongs and throw it onto a side plate.

For an hour and a half they kept coming by our table and when that succulent meat showed up I couldn’t say no. I tried everything that came our way and I loved it all.

That is lamb chops, beef rib, and some other kind of delicious steak.

They also switched it up sometimes with grilled pineapple with a brown sugar glaze that is apparently supposed to help with your digestion so you can eat more meat. I loved that also.

I was so insanely full afterwards that I could barely move. Luckily we were able to walk back to my apartment, which took about 25 minutes. It was nice to kinda walk it off. I felt less like a whale when we got home than I did when we left, so that’s a win.

We were still so full though that we passed out by 9pm and slept until the next morning. Party time! I guess I was practicing being 30.

Not to worry though, I made up for that on Saturday night.

But that is a story for another post.

→ 11 Comments

Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Restaurant, Toronto

Tagged birthday, caipirinha, copacobana, meat, restaurant, steak, terroni

Thirrrrrrrrtyyyyyyyyy

Posted on March 1, 2013 | 28 Comments

About six years ago my friends and I were out at the bar when a guy hit on my friend Julie. She asked how old he was and when he said he was 30, she frowned at him, said “Thirrrrrrrrtyyyyyyyyyy…” and ran away.

Because 30 was old.

I am telling you this story because guess who’s 30?

Oh yes. I am. TODAY. The big 3-0.

I certainly don’t feel 30. I thought I would wake up this morning and magically feel like a grown-up, but I still feel like I’m 21. Still the same. I think I had a harder time last year turning 29. 30 is basically the new 16!

It is interesting to think about though. When I young and pictured being 30 I thought I would feel SO OLD and I figured I would be a legit adult by now. Probably married with kids like my parents were at this age. But I can’t even picture that now.

It does help that my friends are all still young at heart as well, and they all still like to go out and have a good time, even though some are married, and we all have careers going on.

We’ll still enjoy beards.

And glasses.

I will still dress ridiculously if the situation calls for it.

And overall act ridiculously if the situation calls for it (like you are at the Calgary Stampede…)

And you are never too old for the dance floor air guitar, in my opinion.

I’ll still bust it out on occasion.

So no big changes, just another year older. But hopefully someone will throw me a very mature 30th birthday, like we did for Corey last year.

And I don’t really have anything else to say about that. But if you missed my birthday last year I made a cartoon post for it and it is a lot more entertaining than this, so you should check it out.

I would kill to still own that hat.

Oh, and don’t forget to wish my birthday twin a happy birthday as well…

Have a good weekend!

→ 28 Comments

Posted in Random Musings

Tagged 30, birthday, dirty thirty

Tag Archives: birthday

Tiki Hut Party

Ice Ice Baby

Mr. B’s Big 60

30th Shenanigans

30th Eats

Thirrrrrrrrtyyyyyyyyy

Recent Posts

Like Me You Cheeky Cats!

Email subscription

Monthly Archive

Top Posts & Pages

Welcome!

Contact me!

Follow me on Twitter!

Latest:

Follow “Happy or Hungry”

Tag Archives: birthday

Sharing is Caring!

Like this:

Sharing is Caring!

Like this:

Sharing is Caring!

Like this:

Sharing is Caring!

Like this:

Sharing is Caring!

Like this:

Sharing is Caring!

Like this:

Recent Posts

Email subscription

Monthly Archive

Categories

Top Posts & Pages

Welcome!

Contact me!

Follow me on Twitter!

Follow “Happy or Hungry”