My Birthday Extravaganza ~ Part 1

I decided since it was such a huge birthday I was going to treat myself and take Thursday and Friday off of work. Anna and I made plans in January to go to Charleston, SC to celebrate my 21^st together with Cole, and some of my other friends. We seriously booked our hotel rooms in January, because we wanted to be close to downtown so that no one had to drink and drive. Not to mention downtown Charleston is absolutely gorgeous. The architecture, the history, the greenery, the shops everything is breathtaking. Anyways of course Anna got a job in Virginia a few months ago, so it was super great that she was able to come down still and celebrate. Anyways we booked two really nice rooms in one of the nicer hotels down there, for two nights. Friday morning we drove down to Charleston. When we got down there we met up with my brother and went out for lunch at a Mexican restaurant and filled up on delicious frozen peach margaritas. Everyone started trickling into Charleston and we all met up at the hotel to check in. So, Anna is freaking amazing and made this awesome game for me to do over the whole weekend. Basically the game is there were 21 clues/challenges, and each time I finished one I got a puzzle piece….and all the clues had something to do with me personally, our friendship or just normal Charleston traditions. It was really awesome and it gave all of us stuff to do during the random lulls in the weekend.

I have no clue why buy I love this one, its so candid

Nichole, Me, Anna and Bethany

Friday night we traveled down to the Southend Brewery for dinner. (the southend brewery is literally a beer brewery that is also a very nice and yummmmmy restaurant). While we were there I attempted to do a couple challenges, and our waiter totally helped me with one of them. One of the challenges was to find 21 purple and green things (because they are my favorite color) and when he brought our checks I asked if he possibly had anything green or purple and he seriously came back with three things, a purple calculator, a green crayon and a purple pool stick chalk, It was awesome!  At the end of dinner the waiter brought out an amazing birthday brownie for me, but I ended up wearing the ice cream thanks to my brother :P We get a picture in front of the restaurants sign, and I made friends with a huge gorgeous great dane named Breaker….His owner probably thought I was wasted. To follow we went on a hunt for a cannoli, and bought some pralines (both part of my challenges).

Glenn and Cole, this sums them up pretty well! 

The whole group under the Southend Brewery sign

Me and Breaker, cutest dog ever! 

Yummy Cannoli, not as good as Mike's in Boston though! 

We ended up going back to the hotel room for a little bit, a few friends came by for a little bit. We ended up doing a few more challenges while we were in the room. We had to drink a bottle of rum and we also all each ate 21 sour patch kids all at once….and man I think that ruined sour patch kids for me… but it was fun. Several people ended up falling asleep soooooo Glenn (my brother), Cole, my roommate Nichole and I all went to a bar called Mad River, it seriously is a bar that used to be a church! We finally went back to the hotel and went to bed around 3.

All 21 Purple and green things I collected this weekend
 including the things from the waiter

The bottle of rum we all drank together

*if you like this post read part 2! 

I'm officially 21 :)

     Well, As of last Wednesday, June 27^th I am officially a Legal adult…

Since my birthday was on a Wednesday I was certain it was going to be a boring, oh well who cares kind of day but it turned out to pretty great. Almost the whole office went out to lunch at Red Robin for my birthday, and I ordered my first Legal drink. To follow after work a few of my work buddies and I went out to Coyote Joe’s the local Country Club, that offers ladies night and free line dancing lessons on Wednesday nights.  We had a great time learning new line dances, drinking and playing corn hole (yes I know, I didn’t know bars had corn hole set up in the middle of them either). My good friend Lee and his wife bought me a whole bunch of fun birthday gear; they truly made my actual birthday a hundred times better than I thought it was going to be. J  

My First Legal Drink, a Screamin' Red Zombie from Red Robin

My awesome Cup and Pin Lee and his Wife got me 

And the Birthday Festivities Begin!

           This past weekend was awesome, but very very busy! 

            Friday night Cole and I were planning on spending the night hanging out with Cole's buddy that is in the Coast Guard because he and his girlfriend were leaving soon and it was going to be the last time we would see her and get to actually hang out with both of them. Needless to say us hanging out turned into us inviting other people to come over and hang out, and well the night went on til about 4:30 in the morning. I have photos from that night, but they are on the camera that is at Cole's house so I will have to update them on here soon. 

          Saturday was full of lots of Birthday events. We got up pretty early and had breakfast with all the friends that stayed over Friday night. Then Cole and I went and met up with some friends at our buddy Brooks' house. When we got there we all went and got lunch together and headed to meet up with Brooks' wife, Andrea at her parents house to celebrate her birthday. We spend the day sipping on cocktails, playing an hilarious game of volleyball in the pool and tubing out on the lake. Cole and I had to leave the party early though cause we had my family birthday dinner to go to. We met my family, his family and some close friends at Copper River Grill for dinner. We had a really good time, it was great to spend some time with my family and so close friends that I don't get to see very often. Again I have photos, some pretty hilarious ones, butttt they are on my moms camera so I am going to have to updated them later too! haha. I know I'm slack. Anyways dinner was delicious and I had a delicious birthday cake that my brother picked out, it was raspberry flavored icing and filling...it was soooooo YUMMY! I got some very, very nice gifts and some very sentimental cards that made the dinner even more special! After we got done with dinner and dessert Cole and I took his little brother home with us because he spent the night over at Cole's house. We ended up going back over to Andrea's parents' house, where Cole's brother Cameron swam with all the boys and us girls had some girl time/girl talk. Then we all ate some of Andrea's birthday dessert her mom made for her, it was a great end to a fantastic day. 

                Sunday I spent the day shopping with my mom, while Cole and Cameron spent the day playing video games and kayaking. Mom and I found a ton of shoes on sale, and lots of jewelry. Cole and I and a whole bunch of my friends are going down to Charleston this Friday to celebrate my 21st birthday so she helped me find some cute stuff to wear with my birthday dress. And of course we looked at other things and bought a bunch of cute stuff. I got a pair of Coach tennis shoes that were originally $118 for under $50! Mom and I are bargain shoppers, we very rarely buy anything at full price. When mom and I got done shopping we met Cole and his brother and his parents for dinner and ended up going to get frozen yogurt afterwards. I had a cup of strawberry yogurt with frutti pebbles (don't knock it til you try it!) and fresh fruit in it. Then my weekend came to an end and I drove back to work Monday morning. Thankfully I am only working three days this week because of the big trip this weekend!