Sunday, July 26, 2009

my birthday weekend

One of my favorite people from my college days lives just a few hours north of us in Baltimore. Kerry has an infectious laugh and you just can’t help but be happy when you’re around her. She married a great guy and they have two cute little kids. Lucky for me, they all decided to come down and visit this weekend—which also just happened to coincide with my birthday!

We tried to pack a lot into the day and a half that they were here. Of course, I never get as many pictures as I’d like, but here are a few.

We spent some time cooling off at the pool.IMG_5624

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The girls fell under the spell of Barbie, who was masquerading as Rapunzel.IMG_5630

I showed Kerry our Saturday ritual.image image IMG_5633

Berkeley practiced her recently discovered hairstyling skills. IMG_5637

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Activities not pictured: Patrick and Dave playing a heated match of tennis (90-some degrees and 90-some % humidity) while Kerry and I went garage sale-ing at my neighbor’s house with 5 kids in tow, getting yelled at by Jillian Michaels, picnicking and playing at Freedom Park (Charlotte’s much smaller version of NYC’s Central Park), sampling Bojangles’ biscuits, four little girls having a bubble bath, and staying up after the kids were in bed playing games, chatting, and watching Run, Fatboy, Run!

Of course, we also had a birthday celebration. Kerry, Dave, all the kids, and I came back from the pool on Friday evening to find that Patrick had come home from work early enough to have dinner almost completely ready to eat, the table set, and cake and ice cream waiting in the wings. What a guy! After dinner, Patrick gave me some generous gifts, one of which will greatly improve this blog—a new digital SLR camera*!  I can’t wait to start improving my photography!

All in all, it was just the perfect weekend. Great friends, great family, great fun—what more could I ask for? (Okay, I could have asked for a little less humidity but now I’m just being picky…)

We were sad to send our friends back to Baltimore this morning. Berkeley kept asking me why they had to leave and I just want to know when we can do it again!

*I don’t have the camera just yet because Patrick wanted to let me pick it out since I’ve been ogling over them for years!

13 comments:

The Dahle Family said...

Happy Birthday, Meredith! I'm glad you had such a good birthday weekend. Patrick got some good points for being an all-star birthday dad, and now a stellar birthday husband, too. And I find Berk's hairstyling skills quite impressive.

It's Been a Day! said...

happy birthday mer. looks like it was a very fun day!! i love berks dress! it was a dress i have been wanting for avery but decided to pass since she has plenty of dresses - but i still love it! i love birthdays and it sounds like yours was a total success!!

Erin said...

happy birthday. i am SO jealous of the new camera that you don't even have yet!

your farmers market is so much bigger than the matthews one. and it's open during the week?! i think i will have to try yours out.

merathon said...

erin-- let me know if you ever want to go!

Megs said...

Mer, Happy Birthday. Did Pat tell you I called you. Did you get the video I sent on your birthday of Blake singing to you? I am sorry we never got to talk, but it sounds like it was a great day!!

Rachael said...

Happy belated birthday, Meredith! What a fun way to celebrate. And a fancy new camera? Lucky you!

As a side note, I just have to say that JM's 30 Day Shred is so intense... Today I completed day 18, and I am still on level 1!

merathon said...

rach-- you're doing 30 day shred too? yeah, i was doing level 1 and said i wouldn't move up till it became easy, and then i decided it might NEVER be easy so i moved up to 2 last week. and i thought ONE was bad!

Mirien said...

Mer and Rach--I'm a shredder, too! I was on level 2 before Hayley was born, but I started back with level 1 recently and hadn't moved up yet when our DVD player started having problems. I really like that DVD--it's intense, but it's over quick and you feel like you worked hard.

Stephanie@Soggy Runner Girl said...

Looks like you guys had a blast!!! Love the pic of you two, you guys look great!

Karey said...

Looks like you had so much fun! And Patrick had some mad birthday skills! First Emery's and now yours! What a guy!

Kerry and Dave said...

What a fun weekend! I'm so glad it worked out for us to come down. We should make it a Pioneer Day/Birthday tradition :)

Tracy said...

I wanna be a shredder too! (What is it?) HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Tracy said...

Hmm..reread comments more carefully and noticed the words like 'intense' associated with 'shredder'. Maybe I should discover what this is when it's not 1 a.m.