Birthday Celebrations of Years Past

Hello friends and family! Sorry for, again, making a post so late in the month!

One of the topics Tyler and I chose for the month of January is, of course, my birthday. I love birthdays. Tyler isn't as into them as much as I am, but I have always loved having an excuse to get all my friends together and usually doing what I love most: going out to eat and then socializing with drinks afterwards. My first birthday with Tyler was in 2008 and was actually very shortly after we started dating (less than two months in). You would never know our relationship was so young based on the photos from that night.

Tyler and I looking at each other adoringly over dinner.

But then again, for those of you who didn't know, we first told each other we loved each other two weeks in, so to say it was a bit of a whirlwind romance is a bit of an understatement :)

What I also love about looking back at these photos is how quickly our friends accepted the "new guy" with such open arms. As Tyler had mentioned in his last post, I became pretty close with his circle of friends fairly early on. Fortunately my friends seemed to feel the same way about him early on.

My close friends Karly and Marissa with Ty and me being dorks

What I also love from that year was Tyler's present. He got me a bunch of small inside joke type things that I WISH I had taken a picture of. The ones I recall are a McDonald's gift card (I was a big fan of late night quarter pounder runs after a night out) and a Lego Star Wars set. Oh, he knew me so well.



The following year (2009) was also pretty memorable. I had decided that I was going to do my two favourite things: dinner with my besties as well as drinks in a lounge, spread over two nights. Dinner was… interesting to say the least. We went to our favourite Italian restaurant at the time (which shall remain nameless, you'll understand why in a bit…). Unfortunately it was more memorable for its series of strange events. Long story short: our particular waiter was not as attentive as we would have liked, and a number of us were not very happy about it. One particular guest (he was dating one of my BFFs at the time) decided to 1) stick mussel shells in the wine jug (don't ask me how he got it in) and then stole a pepper shaker and gave it to me as a birthday gift. You can tell how happy Tyler and I are to have an authentic Italian pepper shaker (which I believe ended up going to Tyler's parents house when I left Toronto… I wonder if it's still around somewhere)

You can also tell how much it had been snowing on my birthday. Serves me right for being born in January and living in Canada

Fortunately my second night out was a LITTLE more classy. I had friends over at my apartment (God, I still miss that place), but not without shameless selfies first:

 When the guests arrived is when the dancing began.

Two of our BFFs Gio and Nigel

Afterwards, we went to a swanky lounge near my apartment called Panorama

And even the snow didn't stop us from having epic dance parties on the balcony

So those were probably the two most action packed birthdays. Unfortunately, with our current situation, our birthdays haven't been spent together. This year I got two things that I wanted for my birthday: video games and a visit from him shortly before my birthday. What more could a boy ask for? :)

Tyler and I in Newport; January, 2014