Birthday Celebrations!

Last weekend we celebrated my birthday here in Tampa. I had started to plan a little get together but Jamie told me to stop because he had a surprised planned. This of course got me excited, because I LOVE surprises but since I am such a planner (and pretty nosy) it is hard to surprise me. I spent the entire week trying to get clues out of Jamie and our friends as to what as going on. I was only able to figure out minimal details since Jamie's friends 'accidentally' gave me clues that turned out to be wrong to try and throw me off.

Friday night arrived and all I knew was that I had to pack an overnight bag and the fact that I was running late was making Jamie really nervous! We drove for about 40 minutes and soon arrived at our friend Eric's house. Inside I found about 12 of my friends, we stayed at Eric's for a bit when Jamie directed us all outside to get into the cabs. I walked out to the front yard and Jamie told me they were to the right of the house, so I started walking that way and saw a black limo waiting for us! A few more friends joined us and we all piled in and headed to dinner in downtown St. Pete at Bella Brava. I was really very surprised and touched by how thoughtful James had been to plan this as well as excited that all my friends were there to share in the fun night!

Gwen, Kim & Me

 (Mona, Megan & Stephanie are behind that weird flash of light!)

Gwen, Kim & Me

 James & Pat

We had dinner at Bella Brava (the ex Governor Charlie Crist was there too!) and then headed over to First Friday. First Friday is a festival that St. Pete hosts the first Friday of every month. They close down the streets and have live music and all the bars have parties. We hung out in St. Pete the rest of the night and went to a bunch of the bars. I had a lot of fun celebrating my birthday with my friends here in Tampa! We all then headed back to Eric's and stayed there for the night. In the morning we took the long trip to the beach (and by long trip I mean walked one block!). The weather was a little cool but it was still a nice beach day.

On Saturday night Jamie planned for a bunch of us to go to dinner at Irish 31 a new restaurant that had just opened in Tampa that I really wanted to try. We had dinner there and watched the Bengals Texans game and then met up with some more friends in South Tampa. Sunday we spent the morning relaxing until the Giants game. Although admittedly I cheered for the Giants until about the 3rd quarter, the fact that they won will make for an interesting day in the Irving/Early household this Sunday.  I had such a wonderful birthday weekend that Jamie decided to extend it to this weekend! We are continuing the celebrations this weekend up in Orlando as my Christmas and Birthday presents. Hopefully I will have lots of fun things to blog about next week!

Thanks for reading and GoPackGo!!!

New Years in Fort Lauderdale

After we returned from our Christmas vacation in New York we went back to work, me for 4 days and James for 2 (we have a use it or loose it policy at Kforce). Jamie had Thursday and Friday off so he headed up to Orlando Thursday to meet his cousins Chris and Brendan for the Notre Dame bowl game. Chris and Brendan are both Notre Dame Alumni, Chris lives in Fort Lauderdale and Brendan in New York-he was visiting Chris for Christmas and New Years. The boys visited some local bars with other Notre Dame Alumni before the big game. Unfortunately the outcome of the game was not what they had hoped, but they enjoyed catching up and hanging out with each other!

Chris, Brendan, Marty & James

Friday after I finished work James and I made the trip over to Fort Lauderdale to spend New Years with Chris and Brendan. I had never been to Ft Lauderdale so I was pretty excited. The weather was absolutely perfect for our trip. Friday night we went to a few local places like Elbo Room and  Lulu's. We then spent Saturday afternoon on the beach relaxing and getting some much needed sun! Chris and Brendan's friends Michelle and Tony met us and Chris' apartment and we started off Saturday night by walking over to YOLO (you only live once), this great bar right by Chris's apartment. We then headed to Himmarshee, a part of Ft Lauderdale with lots of bars and restaurants. They closed down the streets there and sort of had a block party. There was live music and they had bars set up in the street. They also had a mini ball that dropped at midnight. We all had a lot of fun and since it was about 70 degrees it was nice to be able to spend our New Years Eve outside.

James, Brendan, Chris & Tony

James & Me in front of the ball! 

We spent New Years day at Chris' pool and then went over to the the Hard Rock Casino in Ft Lauderdale for dinner and to watch the Giants game. Luckily everyone left a winner, including the Giants, except me-I just left a year older:) All in all we had a fantastic time; we could not have asked for a better New Years or a better way to start 2012!

Christmas in New York

James and I returned to New York for the Christmas holiday on December 17th and spent ten days visiting with friends and family. We hadn't been home since May so we were pretty anxious to return and see everyone! Our first night home we ventured out to Huntington with my best friend Lisa, my brother and Jamie's cousins. We visited some of our favorite places including Honu and Little Vincent's. In the morning we went to a local bar and painfully watched the Packers suffer their only regular season loss. The pain was numbed however, by the company of good friends.

We spent the remainder of the pre Christmas week spending as much time with friends and family as possible. On Monday night we took my cousins Ashley and Jessi to look at Christmas lights, we ran into a small glitch (the place where we went was closed) but still had a great time.  On Tuesday our good friends planned a dinner for us so we could all catch up and celebrate the engagement of Jen and Robbie (which we are super excited about!!!!). Another afternoon we spent with Jamie's brother Dan, sister in law Tara, niece Bella and nephew Danny at Bella's class Christmas party. The kids were really excited to show us where they went to school and meet some of their friends.

The Christmas weekend approached quickly and brought many traditions for the Earlys and Irvings. On Friday the 23rd the Earlys celebrated Christmas together. Jamie has two older brothers who are married and have some pretty cute kiddies so we all got together. Here are a few pictures from the night

Brothers and their Blondes:)

Jason, Olivia, Bella, CJ and Danny

I had to sneak out of the Christmas festivities a little early to meet my family for dinner. We have started a pre Christmas family tradition and all meet for dinner at Samurai Hibachi in Huntington. The night was filled with volcano bowls, sake bombs and lots of laughs with our family.  Saturday is when the real fun began though. Since before I was born my Mom's side of the family has gathered on Christmas Eve for a party, the most memorable staple is the Champagne Punch. It was first hosted by my Grammy at her house and has since been passed down to my Mom (and me) and is now a night full of appetizers, champagne punch and Christmas carols!  We try and get creative with the appetizers we serve, some favorites include fried macaroni and cheese, the mashed potato bar, Christmas tree little hot dogs and of course bagel bites. The morning of Christmas Eve I came down with a cold which slowed me down a bit but I still think that everyone had a wonderful time! Here are some pictures below of a few of the appetizers we served. 

The Infamous Champagne Punch

Snowman Cheese Ball

Christmas Tree Little Hot Dogs

Mashed Potato and Toppings Bar

Bandit in his Christmas outfit, he was not happy 

( if you couldn't tell by the look he is giving me)

On Christmas morning I went with Jamie and his parents to his brother Dave and sister in law Jenn's house to have breakfast and watch Livi, Jason and CJ open presents. It was fun to see how excited they were to open their gifts! In the afternoon Jamie and I went to my Aunt Helen's house for Christmas Day dinner. We had a great time and dinner was excellent, as always! Afterwards we went back to Jamie's to celebrate with his parents and to watch the Packer game. Monday morning brought one last family tradition-the Pancake Cottage. Every year for as long as any of us can remember we spend the morning after Christmas at the Pancake Cottage in Greenlawn. We almost always sit at the same two tables and we rarely change what we order. After breakfast a few last family members stopped by our house to spend my last  few hours in New York with me and celebrate Christmas once again! Around 7pm that night Jamie and I headed to the airport to return to Tampa. We had such an amazing trip and it was nice to see so many of our friends and family. Although we didn't get to see everyone, my cold really slowed us down at the end, we will be back at the end of April for 5 days so hopefully we will get to see everyone then:)