Birthday countdown

I know, I'm a dork. At 30 I really shouldn't be all that excited about my birthday anymore. For the past few years I've joked that I'm going to start counting back down the years, instead of up. Despite that, the kid part of me still gets excited about celebrating my birthday! I love getting together with my friends and, of course, I LOVE the cake!! And now the countdown has started... my 31st birthday is less than one week away!!

This year I am departing from the usual birthday celebration tradition (usually involving braving the holiday crowds to go out to dinner somewhere) and I'm hosting a small birthday/holiday party at my place. This means that my time lately has been spent planning, making lists, obsessing about the planning, cleaning, shopping and, of course, making more lists :D Thankfully Claudia is helping me out with some of it... THANK YOU!!!

This past weekend I spent mostly participating in the above mentioned activities, but I also managed to squeeze in some fun. Saturday Claudia and I spent the early part of the day wine tasting in Livermore. She just joined the wine club at Tamas Winery and since they were having a little reception/party we decided it would be a nice excuse to go out there for a little wine tasting and restocking of our wine stashes. I haven't been wine tasting there before and I really enjoyed it! I didn't LOVE all the wines (some were VERY sweet, I guess due to the soil there) but it was still fun. Claudia dropped me back off at home in the afternoon so I could get ready for Brandy's company Christmas party that night. She had invited me as her "date" for the night. It was a fancy shmancy party at the St. Francis, complete with a cocktail hour, really yummy dinner, and dancing! I had such a fun time... and even came away with one of the gorgeous centerpieces! Boy did my feet hurt though!

Finally I took some pictures of my Christmas Tree and the wreath that I just got... Enjoy!