Cause for Celebration

If anyone knows my husband, they know he is not one for being the center of attention. But if you know that, you also know that he IS one to put everyone else's interests above his, always.

Course, he's no fool and has caught on to my love of cooking and entertaining, and he also knows I love celebrating those that I love... so he graciously played along with my idea to throw our first big party in the house, and allowed his 30th birthday to be the cause.

Facing all that I knew going into this thing, the only thing I could do was to think of everything and anything that Chris loves... sports immediatly popped into my head first - so the decorations consisted of everything we owned Nationals-Redskins-Bucknell-University of Maryland related.

Next was the food, I called in the big guns and had Chris' brother, Ben (who I've mentioned before as being the master of the grill and almost all things culinary), for his *almost world-famous ribs. I supplied all of the appetizers and sides and dessert, but Ben's ribs were the star of the show by far.

I had some other help - namely the weather (which enabled a few fun rounds of KUBB) and a good Redskins-Browns game that provided additional entertainment.

And to cap it all off, a team of us lit all 30 candles one our favorite chocolate-mousse filled Costco cake. *yes, I bought a cake - sometimes it's just better to outsource; the rest of the food for 30+ people had done me in

Even Chris' least favorite part of the evening, some extremely loud but friendly singing, couldn't lessen the fun from the rest of the day.

All in all, I must say that while I'm a little tired from all of the planning these past 2 months, I definitely loved every moment of it. The absolutely best part, though, was getting to celebrate Chris' birthday with all of our favorite friends. We've agreed multiple times that one of our favorite past-times is just about any time we're able to spend with friends... and this time was no different.

So a big huge thanks to everyone who made this such a special birthday... even if Chris would rather forget WHICH birthday.

And yes, it goes without saying that these pictures aren't the greatest... between transitioning from appetizers and snacks, to dinner and then again to dessert (and lighting 30 candles!), pictures were the last thing in my mind, sadly enough.