scenes from the weekend: a celebration, great friends & a hill country getaway

This weekend was our friend Jason's 40th birthday.  Jason is married to one of my best friends, so when she invited us to come spend the weekend with her and a few other of my best friends to celebrate, we didn't even hesitate to accept her invitation.  I left the laptop at home, but made sure to bring my camera.

This was one of the most enjoyable weekends I've had in a long time.  Part of it, I think, had to do with the fact that Maile had her entire house totally kitted out in Christmas finery.  Part of it, I'm sure, had to do with reuniting with good friends I hadn't seen in months.  And the rest of it was definitely because we just had a whale of a time.

Of course, part of that whale of a time could be because Maile and Jason had Trinidadian rum on hand, and Jenny had brought some pop-top convenience-store wine.  No, really. 

As far as Alex was concerned, she was just happy to see her friends.  (This, by the way, is the major perk of living in Texas:  summers are brutal, but winters are mild, and occasionally, in December, it's warm enough to jump into the pool.)

So, since the kids were taken care of, Maile, Jenny and I decided to head out into town, because Jenny wanted to buy Jason the perfect birthday gift.  Naturally, she did.

Personally, I think the resemblance to Jason is uncanny.

When we returned, we discovered that Victor had made what can only be described as a heaping mess of crab legs.  Which, YES, PLEASE.

A fantastic lunch, which we all devoured, followed by another dip in the pool. Naturally.

Finally, night fell, and it was time to really celebrate Jason.  Jason and Maile have been married for 18 years, so he was understandably nervous about what was about to happen ...

... he knows his wife so well.

Maile decided to have a bit of fun:  she had photoshopped Jason's face onto the body of a ballet dancer, and asked the bakers add the image to a plain cake, with a caption about how gracefully he was aging.

But, my friends, this is Texas, where apparently, bakers don't cotton to muscular men in tight leotards kicking.  The only kicking around these parts, apparently, happens on a football field, so without telling Maile, they decided to "fix" the cake by actually adding a football field.

Awesome.

Time to light that puppy up.

And then, we sat around their back yard until the wee hours of the morning, laughing until we were sore.

It was truly an amazing time, and honestly, the first weekend in ages when I didn't check email, or fret about the house too much.  So even though we were celebrating Jason, I was so happy, it felt like my birthday -- it was so great to spend time with my sweet friends.

Thanks, Maile & Jason, for everything.  You're both so wonderful.

Song:  Brandy (you're a fine girl), by Looking Glass.  There was much quoting from this song all night long.  I have no idea why.