It's Party Time and I'm not crying

I've been very spoilt this year for my birthday. We had a crazy week last week going out 6 nights in a row which was not ideal but lots of fun. Then this week, my birthday week, I had my family party on Sunday night at Maxy's Elsternwick. It's been quite a while since I've been there, probably since Jessie's 18th but it's not as good as Limor's I have to say.

Mum, Dad, Aaron and my aunt Dorka came along. It was nice to see Dorka after several months and it sounds like she's been very busy with trips to country Victoria. I even commented that we'd seen a film recently where one of the actors was called Dorka. She was most impressed. The film was 'Irina Palm' which was fun and brought up some interesting ideas about how far a parent or grandparent would go to save their child.

On Wednesday night for the special day, Mark had organised a surprise party for me. I had suspected something but not how big or anything like how wonderful it was. Mark had found out about Gill's Diner, an extension of a new bakery-cafe that only opened 3 mths ago. He managed to get a private dining room (essentially) for about 15 friends for the night.

It was amazing to see all of my friends there, including Lori & Markus from Warbuton, on a 'school night' and virtually everyone stayed till 12 midnite! It was really fantastic with beautiful wines and we had a choice of 2 soups (chicken & leek or chicken & corn), 2 entrees (roast quail wrapped in prosciutto or potato terrine with capers and pesto) and 3 mains (rabbit in white wine sauce, kingfish with crusted nuts or pea & mint risotto). Then after all this we had a lovelty and surprisingly light Chocolate Gateau baked by Gill's Diner.

After finally getting to bed at approx. 1.15am and then working the next day, we travelled to Bayswater to have a family borthday with Mark's parents. September is a very busy month in Mark's family as there is a sister and nephew on the 4th, uncle on the 12th, father on the 14th, niece on the 18th, Tam on the 26th, Mum on the 27th and step-Dad on 29th September!
So the family birthday celebrations covered about 6 birthday's.

Finally festivities are over for another year, now we're planning for Mark's big day in a few months.