Meet The Murrays: A Birthday Extravaganza

I had myself a little birthday celebration. The overall theme was food. You will agree indeed when you see all of my pictures. I would like to take this opportunity to make it very clear that I do not normally eat this badly. Nor did I ever consume all that was on a plate all by little ol' self. I always like to share my sin.

As usual, I turned my birthday into a weekend long event. I have a lot of pictures, but I've tried to narrow it down to a few, but you can rest assured I have included all of the food related pictures for your viewing pleasure.

My extravaganza began on Friday night and continued through tonight. A four day shindig, if you will.

On Friday night, Claire and I had a Girl's Night because Brian and Parker were supposed to be camping with Boy Scouts. The boys decided not to go camping, but the girls still had PLANZ. Claire picked Dairy Queen for dinner.

We were disappointed that our original plan of painting pottery didn't work out. They were closed for a private party. Claire seemed to enjoy Plan B just fine at Wallabies.

Brian and Parker ended up going to see a movie and out to dinner together. Then when we all got home, it was decided that we should ALL sleep in the tent out in our back yard. I bet you're wondering how this all fits in with MY birthday weekend. Yeah, I was wondering that too.

Anyway, we did it. It started thundering, then raining, and eventually raining harder. We made it until 5:07 AM when we all raised the white flag and went inside to the comfort of our beds. Honestly, that was longer than I thought we would last. I definitely took one for the team with that whole tent thing. Makin' Memories (I suppose).

On Saturday, we ate a quick lunch at La Carretta. Most of us had on orange to support our Vols. They ended up having a better game than I expected, even though we lost.

Saturday night, I went out with Lisa and ate at The Battery. We shared the Shrimp and Grits appetizer. I'm not much of a grits girl, but I did really like it.

I also ate this humongous (insert sarcasm) crab cake. It was delicious albeit tiny.

Since we had promised to not even open the front cover of our new Christmas with Southern Living books until we were together, we took them with us to Starbucks. We didn't even care that we looked like huge nerds with our matching SL Christmas books in the middle of Starbucks. Here I am with my drink and book ~ Lisa is a little camera shy I guess.

On Sunday, Brian and I went to Knoxville for the day. Of course, we started the day with lunch at Stir Fry. We only had egg rolls, but my oh my, they were delicious.

Then there was a little incident involving a mini Cinnabon. Remember, I shared everything all weekend. And it was a MINI one people. I basically had one bite!

After a bunch of shopping all over town, it was time for the main event. ALTRUDA'S!

Salad!

Garlic Rolls

Lasagna
(If loving it is wrong, I don't want to be right)

Today is my actual birthday. I took the day off which was glorious. Brian and I had Moto's for lunch. I told you it was a weekend of ridiculous, fattening, excessive food. Gluttony I tell you. But remember, I shared everything. That makes it ok, right?

I loved my gifts from Brian and the kids. I got sweet cards, boots, two charms, shower gel, a candle, a scarf, and some candy (because at this point, why not?)

I had lots of special little treasures from the kids. They both made me the sweetest cards and then gave me various pieces of gum, little tiny notes, and a My Little Pony piece of mail. My greatest treasures!

Then tonight, for the closing ceremonies, my sweet Mom made a feast. All of my family (except Andy and Miriam who live out of town) came over to eat and celebrate with me. I have a lot of pictures from tonight, but most of them are blurry so I just picked a few. I'm sorry to anybody who isn't pictured!