Double Dozen!

Well I'm officially 24 years old. I don't feel any different and although from the outside I don't look any different I'm sure I've changed a lot over the past year. It's crazy to think that my mom was already married and pregnant with me at 24.
This past weekend Adam's parents and my mom came to visit. Adam's parents arrived Saturday afternoon just in time to watch the second half of the MSU football game. I didn't get to catch the end of the game as I was already on my way to the airport to pick up my mom. I guess I didn't miss much as the Spartans lost their 1st home game against Northwestern in overtime. Once I picked up my mom we met up with Adam and his parents and had dinner at Blue Moon.

On Sunday morning we headed out east to visit Kendra and the LI Wineries. The traffic getting to/from Kendra's apartment in Port Jefferson was smooth sailing, except getting to the wineries from Port Jefferson was a nightmare. It seemed that everyone in the tri-state area was heading to the North Fork to go on hay rides, go apple picking, pumpkin picking, etc. We finally arrived at the Martha Clara winery and enjoyed our lunch sitting outside with a bottle of one of their white table wines.

Martha Clara also has a sunflower field where you can pick your own sunflowers so we decided to take some pictures surrounded by the flowers



After Martha Clara we headed to Roanoke, which is Kendra's winery. I've grown very fond of their 2006 De Rosa Rosé, and we were able to enjoy a couple bottles on the patio before it got too cold or too late.







After Roanoke we headed back towards Port Jefferson and had dinner at one of my favorite LI restaurants, Amici. We were pretty wined out by dinner time so we stuck with water and enjoyed our dinner. I had a grilled chicken pesto pasta with pignoli nuts in a Basil, garlic cream sauce. It was so good!

After dropping Kendra back at her apartment we headed back to NJ to open presents from Adam's family. I got some really great stuff including a Michigan State Scrapbook, a 25th anniversary Care Bear with a silver nose and Swarovski crystal eyes, a LOVE Mickey silver charm and cash money to get my own personalized license plate (Adam recently got a NJ license plate that says MICHST8, and I hate to admit that after it arrived, I was pretty jealous).

On Monday morning it was back to work, but my mother joined Mason, Cindy and I at the Cheesecake factory for lunch.


After lunch I headed back to the office to finish up my work so I could spend the afternoon with my mom. We headed to the mall where my mom bought me some cute dresses and shirts, which I will be bringing with me to Florida this weekend :) After shopping we went to dinner at the Polish Kitchen. It's a small hole in the wall type of place by our apartment, but seeing as my Mom and Adam are both Polish and I haven't been there with either of them, I figured it was a nice low-key choice.

Tuesday was my official Birthday, even though we had been celebrating it since Saturday. I dropped my mom off at the airport in the morning and made my way to work. We went to one of my favorite Peruvian Chicken restaurants for lunch and Mason spoiled me with flourless chocolate cake and chocolate cupcakes in the
afternoon.



After work I headed into the city for dinner at Carmine's with Adam, Walt, Fink, Sarah, Kendra and Mason.


Sarah and Matt bought me a very cool HAPPY BIRTHDAY ceramic plate that everyone signed (Keith is proudly displaying it below).


The food was delicious as always, and the desert was GINORMOUS!




It was a great birthday and I couldn't have asked for anything more...