celebrating SFAMily birthdays is fun

good gracious - it's wednesday and i'm STILL recapping my weekend! damn. that tells you how much fun it was, huh? not to mention, i haven't even talked about sunday yet. heh.

saturday we headed out to join some of the SFAMily to celebrate our friend amber's 30th birthday. she and i are pretty tight, and she's been a wonderfully supportive buddy who's also been quite generous with the bean. she loves gifts from auntie amber, because they're always adorable. well, okay, maybe the bean doesn't really realize that, but i sure do. so i wanted to put a fun gift together for her, and i think i succeeded.

i knew what i wanted to do, but not exactly how to achieve it. after much research online for "accordion cards," i finally got it together and made this card:

the little floral-edged panels serve as pockets. and to fill them, on our way to the party, we made four stops: pinkberry, jamba juice, starbucks, and in-n-out. i was amused to arrive at the last stop to find a bride and groom, fully dressed outside a waiting limo, standing at the pick-up counter, waiting for double-doubles. with no photographer in sight, i wondered if they were anticipating some shitty ass reception food, and giggled to myself. i totally tried to get a picture, but i was too close and too noticeable, and so this is the best i got:

mission accomplished! i admired my handiwork and then stuffed the almost-too-fat card inside the envelope.

i only had my shitty point-and-shoot camera with me, so there isn't a plethora of photographs. but i can tell you that while the bean fell asleep in the car on the way to the party, she woke up and was excited to bust out her bikini and hop into the pool:

she also liked the fountain in the front courtyard:

all that playing makes a bean thirsty. after squeezing it and laughing at the stream of lemonade that squirted out, she sat down to have a drink.

i took this picture upside-down, so it looks kinda funky after flipping it right side up. but you gotta have cake!

our guest of honor was ever-so-slightly tipsy from running around like mad, sticky, humid heat, and maaaaaybe a cup or two of rum-spiked punch. but that made things more fun. we made her open our gifts, and mine was first.

she was super entertaining as she continued with the embarrassing task of opening gifts in front of people. well, maybe her state of inebriation made it okay, but i know that i feel super awkward doing this. i love presents more than chocolate, but i really hate having to open them in public.

before the bean had a complete meltdown due to lack of a proper nap and tiredness from all that playing, we gathered outside for a group pic. the monkey enlisted r's li'l man to man her camera and snap a few:

we are such hams.

happy, happy birthday to amber! we had a great time, and she and her hub are awesome hosts, as always. dude, i hope that hangover wasn't too bad.

when we got home, we decided to bust out the other movie we'd rented from redbox the night before. and it was one that i hadn't really wanted to see but picked up due to lack of any others to pick from: confessions of a shopaholic. i like isla fisher well enough, but i wasn't thrilled about the changes they'd made from book to screenplay. doesn't that always happen?

anyway, it was just as disappointing as i'd expected, but at least we were entertained for a while.