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Kymm turned 39 today, and chose to celebrate her birthday with us at the same Moroccan restaurant where I celebrated my birthday two years ago. (Yes, look, it's an archived entry from the old site! There will be more coming this week - a selection to celebrate my fifth journalversary on Wednesday.) It was a journal-riffic group comprised of me, Greg, Elizabeth, Tracing, Colleen, Corina and Wes, and of course the aforementioned Kymm...and Omar, who is a sweetie and had no problems fitting right into our always loud, often perplexing group. Much fun was had; copious amounts of food were eaten. A couple got engaged on the banquette next to us. Kymm actually tried the couscous this time. Belly dancing was both observed and performed (not by me; I don't belly dance - I didn't on my 30th birthday and I wasn't going to on Kymm's). After the almost-three-hour-long dinner we adjourned to Casa Greg and Melissa for birthday cupcakes. I planned to make these cupcakes from scratch, but after looking at the Joy of Cooking decided that life is seriously too short. I mean, really. The recipe involved a simple syrup of some sort and a candy thermometer. However, I didn't want to just make a boxed mix, and after the last time I made Kymm birthday cake she did post about her favorite kind and I wanted to make it for her. (Wow, that sentence is a mess.) So instead of making truly scratch cupcakes I bought The Cake Mix Doctor and made cupcakes from that. This cookbook was written by a genius. It really does make cake mixes taste like scratch cakes. I made white and chocolate cupcakes (the former so I could make Kymm her white cake with white icing and coconut and the latter because Greg would simply stand for it if I made white cupcakes but no chocolate cupcakes) and real buttercream frosting and everything was delicious. I did end up making the coconut and the chocolate-on-chocolate cupcakes, but I also made chocolate-on-white and white-on-chocolate and peppermint on both, which was amazing. So we had cupcakes and conversation and Kymm opened her presents and we listened to the Fountains of Wayne CD because it just doesn't get old, and a good time was had by all. Lots of pictures were taken, but these are my favorites:  Kymm made me promise not to post any pictures of her without approval, but people in The Usual Suspects chatroom agreed that this was a great picture and that because she is in a great mood, it should be posted. And here it is. She looks adorable and happy, and hey, belly dancer!
Kymm and Omar went back to Lancaster after cupcakes and Corina and Wes returned home. Tracing and Colleen and Elizabeth and I proceeded to stay up past two drinking homemade strawberry margaritas, gossiping, and hashing out the minutia of our various lives. (Greg wisely fled to the upstairs when the first mention of nail polish happened.) It has been a long time since I had a girls' night that fun, and it was long overdue. I really wish they'd taken the cupcakes home with them, however. |
