Moira's birthday weekend

Lying is SUCH hard work! It was my mother-in-law’s birthday yesterday, her 60^th. She has been insisting that she doesn’t want a party for months. And what did we do? We organised a surprise birthday party for her! On Friday night, 18 ladies went to one of her favourite restaurants, for a surprise birthday dinner. She actually cried when she walked into the place and saw us all sitting there.

the birthday girl!

We hoped that if she did think something was going on, the dinner would be the surprise and that would be that. We organised for my father-in-law to take her away for Saturday night, so after they left, we got to work. Harps and I started chopping veggies and chicken for the skewers, Mark installed the new dishwasher and Barry and Karl took over the skewers at one point, so the girls could bake. 

our handyman

our chefs

the baker

On Sunday morning, we woke up to no rain! Which is a miracle cos it rained NON-STOP on Friday and Saturday. So the boys set up the marquee (after much squabbling and in-fighting), and the girls did the set up. 

The surprise braai went so well. We had about 50 guests, and the last of them left at silly o’ clock this morning. At one point the men were singing Irish songs outside (drunken Irish songs!). So we are all shattered this morning. But it was good fun and the desserts were AMAZING!

mommy, can I have a beer too?

Next weekend is Barry’s birthday and I’m going to try and make him a rubik’s cube cake :)

Birthday weekend part II

So last Saturday night, my good friend Joanne, decided we were gonna celebrate my birthday in 3D style... dinner, drinks and dancing. We went to her home town of Ballycastle, about 30 mins from where we live. We went shopping on Thursday evening (instead of Zumba!) and bought very cheap, but very sexy dresses. I'm actually gutted that we didn't get a photo together in our new dresses. I did try a new hairdo though, like a side bun-thing...

We went to a place called the Central for the first part of the evening.

I had the MOST AMAZING chicken stack ever! Its roasted chicken on a bed of champ (an Irish version of mash), with fried onions on top and a creamy peppered sauce! YUM!!! Karl had a bacon and avo (?) burger, which was really well presented.

After dinner, Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday started playing and this cake arrived on our table. It was really very sweet (nearly cried, but didn't!).

After dinner, we gate-crashed a wedding. The girl in the pink dress and her hubby were invited to the evening do at a friends wedding (in a nightclub!?) so we all went along for a few drinks. After a few long and uncomfortable stares from the wedding guests (probably wondering who on earth we were), we moved to the Glenshesk, more commonly known as "Sin City."

And thats all I remember (just kidding!) We were home and in bed by 2am :)