Turning 31 !!!!

Yes, today I turned 31 years old and I'm still not depressed that I am in my thirties. I just feel more like a grown up now and am enjoying being a mom while taking on all the amazing adventures that we do.   One thing that is cool is that a year ago my little baby was in my tummy and now he's hear celebrating with me...how amazing!!! I got to celebrate this joyous day with wonderful friends in our back garden on beautiful and warm English summer evening.  I couldn't have asked for anything more.

Last year we bought this big tent when rain threatened our picnic at the Burghley House Battle Proms but we never got to use it.  With the strong sun and heat we have been having the past few days it was a great opportunity to break it out and give us a little relief and it worked out great.

Of course I have to talk about the food because that totally sets the theme for the party.  We had three different types of kabobs - chicken with veggies in an Asian marinade, beef with peppers in a Turkish marinade, and citrus marinaded prawns (shrimp).  Min made potato casserole while I also made up crab salad for a cool touch to the meal.  Sarah brought over strawberries and cream after she swears that her pavlova was unrecoverable...she is so funny!  Debbie Beales brought over a wonderful trifle and the goodies to make mango champagne spritzers (one of my favs)!!!!

Min surprised me with a beautifully decorated angel food cake that she had Laurie get for her from the US base.  I haven't had angel food cake is ages and it was sooooo yummy.  The food was great and of course we actually had more puddings that main course food!!!  I had said that by my 31st birthday that would have lost 15 pounds, but I only ended up losing 10 and I totally attribute it to having too many BBQs the last few weeks where you can't resist all these great sweets...  I'll have to work on the last five when we get back from the States. 

It's been pretty hot the past few days but Min handles the heat well since she grew up with it being like this and hotter most f her life.  And of course she totally looks like a rockstar model with her shades on.

Harry was coping with the heat pretty well and gave us his best "gun" show in the process.

I was totally spoilt (spoiled-American) this year.  Kevin all out and bought me a brand new dress from Monsoon which is a higher end clothing store here and he got me a Radley handbag which is the British "Coach" bag.  They are distinctively identified by the little Scottie dog.  It is so nice that I am only going to use it for special occasions because I totally abuse my everyday bag with all my "mom" supplies.  Thank you sweetie!!!!  And thank you to Emily for wrapping them up for Kevin and reminding him to make time to go get me something this year (hee hee).

My friends also spoiled me way to much.  The Beales' got be a wonderful bottle of Oyster Bay Wine which I absolutely love.  The Gorman/Clayton's got me a super cute custard pitcher for me to use when serving my puddings and a recipe journal to write down my most favorite recipes.  I may have to get another one since I have some many favorites.  The Wong's went overboard as well by getting me Delia Smith's "How to Cook" cookbook which is about 2" thick and filled with some of the best instructions on how to do the basics of cooking.  Essentially Delia is the Martha Stewart or Betty Crocker of the UK.  Funny thing was that I had just bought the earlier versions of this book at a boot sale just a few weeks ago.   Now that had the new book I could share my "previously loved" books with my sister for her birthday...it's wonderful how things work out!

Thank you all for making my day so special!

***DISCLAIMER:  There are not many pictures of me on this post for a reason.  We have been having quite a heat wave in the UK this past week.  Temps in the high 80's and humidity and with no air conditioning and days without any wind can get horribly uncomfortable.  Well, after spending most of the day getting ready for the BBQ I ended up hopping in the shower about 20 minutes before everyone got to our house and I didn't bother drying my hair because the humidity and my hair do not mix.  So I looked atrocious for my own party and if can't tell by these pictures you are blind, but you are kind if you don't mention how bad I look.