My Birthday March 2006!

I kicked off my official birthday weekend by driving down to my parents home Friday night after work. My sweet mom had baked my favorite Czech plum cake and her and my dad had a little surprise birthday party for me. I felt so special :)

I blew out my candles and made my wishes... one of them was that my love would come back home safe!

Saturday my parents took me to San Diego for the day. We went to Balboa Park and walked around the beautiful gardens and then we went to the Gaslamp District to walk around Horton Plaza and all the shops. Then it was time for a celebratory drink... we went to the new W Hotel in downtown and had drinks in their lobby bar... perfect treat before dinner!

After drinks, we had reservations at a hip new restaurant that my co-worker recommended. We got there and a bottle of TGP wine was chilling just for us, it was so sweet! We had a delicious dinner and shared everything so we got to taste around... my parents are so kind to celebrate me while Ry is gone, wish he could be with us!

Sacramento for My Pre-Birthday

Since coming back from Tokyo, it's been really tough being away from Ry. I am counting down days again until our next meet up in April! For my Birthday this year, Ry's sweet parents invited me to Sacramento to spend the weekend before my birthday with them. I flew in Friday night after work and Cliff and Marty took my to Biba's, an Italian restaurant they love down-town. We had a delicious meal and it was so good to be with them. Saturday, Lindsay came and we spent the day together. I showed them pictures from Tokyo and told them all about our trip. Saturday night we all went to Paragary's for dinner. It was a fun and hip atmosphere and we were spoiled with a bottle of Rombauer :) Sunday we woke up early, packed a picnic and headed up to the wineries in Amador County. We explored a couple wineries, tasted wines and then had a picnic on a cute wineries' patio. It was the perfect relaxing pre-Birthday weekend with the Conkle's, I am so thankful to have them as family!