Jessie's Decadent 21st Birthday

Our dear, sweet Jessie celebrated her 21st
last week with much fanfare and indulgence.

We began her day by serving her breakfast in bed - she had to start her day out well to make it through! In the picture you can see her working on french toast and a jello shot, and she also had some yoghurt and fruit, and her first mimosa of the day! Matt, Alli and I provided most of the grub, and Thimo contributed his delivery and singing services.

Here we all are seeing what we could do with our faces after eating breakfast with Jessie, perhaps a very special gift to her? or perhaps not...In any case, breakfast was delicious, and there was plenty of French toast to go around. Later on we even got to see Hailey, who is pictured below. The faces they are making in that picture, however, were in no way staged.

Funny faces at left, top to bottom: Matt with the tongue-spot cheek blow, Jessie with the opposite lip snarl, Anjali trying to get all of her features to the center of her face, Thimo as a more-frightening-than-cute rabbit, and me joining in the lip snarl with Jessie.

If only all birthdays could start so sweetly!

Yes, you have not met Hailey. She was yet another person brought initially to us by Jessie, our social butterfly. I got to get to know Hailey on our trip to the peninsula, so now I can say that she is my friend too! Hailey hails from the lovely state of Oregon. Unrelated to that (I think), she also makes damn good banana muffins, which she brought later in the day to Jessie's formal dessert party... Yippers.

We decided that, since we were throwing Jessie a formal dessert party at 9pm, we would dress up for dinner, also. So, at left you can see our dapper group of five, all ready for a stylish dinner on George Street.

Left to right: Matt, Thimo, me, Jessie, Libby

The Ananda Indian Cafe became our dining destination, where I got my first Indian cuisine since being in NZ. Oh, and was it ever a treat. The restaurant is unique in that they offer five different curries every night, and so we decided to have one of each and share everything - a great idea. The curries included: zucchini and mango; cheese dumplings in a tomato sauce; savory brown lentils; curried potatoes and onions; and eggplant with seeds and spices. Yum. I could not pass up the mango lassi, and we also started the meal with some stuffed naan and a fried potatoe, onion and pea ball (name?). We left not a bit of food on our plates - our mothers would all be proud.


We got back to J Flat to find our house already full of well-dressed friends, and we stuffed ourselves full of tasty desserts (where my cheesecake got a chance to shine, and was the only dessert of the evening to be completely finished off!), sipped on some beverages, and did a great deal of booty shaking! The evening continued on after that at the Bath St and...and..and..Jessie did make it home safely and soundly, exhausted after a super day of celebrating. Amazing how many good friends you can make in a month! And it has only just begun...