Since I am well aware that your life basically is put on hold and the baby's life becomes forefront once you have one I figured that I better make sure I celebrated my birthday in style this year. So celebrate we did. Mom came down for on Saturday and tried (and tried...and tried) to get me to pick out a glider but considering it took over 4 years for me to find the "right" leather chairs for the living room and I haven't fully committed to the nursery set yet, she went back to NYC disappointed.
On Sunday Terri, Bill,(my sis and her BF) Jake and I woke up early and went into Philly. First stop, the Park Hyatt hotel. One of the Grand Dame hotels in the city. Their restaurant is on the 19th floor and has lovely views of the city. There are 2 dining rooms attached by a demonstration kitchen, the wine cellar, and the clubby (dark woods and leather banquets) bar. The dining rooms themselves are gorgeous 3 story rotundas, cream toned with lots of ornate plaster work and capped with lovely stained glass windows. One has an enormous pearl chandelier. Very fancy. First stop, the continental breakfast bar. Mini chocolate croissants and other mini pastries, bagels and lox, cheese trays, yogurts and cereals. At the bar, they were serving berry smoothies. Second stop, the asian station set up in the demonstration kitchen: 3 kinds of potstickers, vietnamese spring rolls, asian salads and sushi. Third Stop, raw bar: enormous shrimp and oysters. At that point you had to "order" your entree, which was a switch. Everyone else at the table had crab cake benedict while I opted for the farmers omlette. Then the dessert station, if there's room, which there barely was at that point. Shot glass parfaits of s'mores and strawberry shortcake. Choc/caramel tarts, cheesecake....so many good things.
We then decided to try and walk some of the gluttony off so we headed up Broad and around City Hall, thru Love Park and down to The Franklin Museum where they had the Narnia Exhibition. Lots of fun wandering through and seeing the props and costumes from the movies. It was opening day for the Phillies and I think everyone went to tailgate at Citizens Bank Park so the city - and the museum - itself seemed pretty empty.
On the way back, we stopped at a Borders where my lovely sis indulged my inner 13 year old girl by getting me the Twilight DVD, the Kings of Leon CD (excellent!) and the Paramore CD/DVD (cannot believe that girl can sign that well and is only like 20 years old). At home, got a card from Gail, Dre and Tina (MIL, bro and sis-in-law) and an excellent pic. drawn by 18 mo. old Mia (niece)!!
Thank you to everyone who sent me Birthday wishes via emai and calls. I am truly blessed.
