Kellie's 23rd Birthday Weekend

February 8th, 2013:

After work on Friday, Jamie and I packed our bags and drove to Winter Park (near Orlando) to visit my best friend Kellie for her birthday (which was on the 11th). We got there around 8:30 pm and met her on Park Ave for some dinner and drinks at 310 Park South Restaurant. It's really neat there when it's nice outside because they can move the walls/windows closest to the street and make it completely opened. In fact, all of Park Ave is cute and ritzy and I wouldn't mind living at a place like that one day. Kellie lives walking distance to all places which is perfect.

After dinner, we went to Wine Bar which I was introduced to last year and was excited to show Jamie.  Last year I was recommended to try a sweet red wine called "Sangue di Giuda" or "Blood of Judas". It's described as "chock full of dark fruit flavors, plum, black cherry, raspberry, wild berries. This wine also exhibits a touch of sparkling acidity while maintaining a round fruity palate." I was so in love with this wine that I bought 2 bottles before I left last year, then ordered another 3 to be delivered to my apartment. It's been great for gift giving and sharing with friends!

Downstairs is where they store their wines, as well as have wine lockers for local patrons.

In the main area, there is a mini wine cellar that I thought was pretty cute.

You pay for a card to insert into the different dispensaries around the room and pay by the ounce. It's a really neat concept that was introduced to Gainesville recently as a place called Half Cork'd that I can't wait to try. The only problem is that Jamie is not much into wine, but I plan to turn him into a wine-o over time. :)

I bought 3 more bottles of Sangue Di Guida before we went back to Kellie's apartment. We called it an early night since we were out late the night before, and knew we were going to have a late night the next night.

February 9th, 2013:

Another great thing about Winter Park is the amazing Farmers Market they have there every Saturday morning. We walked over there for some breakfast and grabbed some coffee and breakfast bagels.

The bagel was so yummy, filling, and cheap! I grabbed an everything bagel with ham, egg, cheese, and spinach and artichoke cream cheese.

We continued to walk around and look at all the other cool things that were for sale, buying a couple of Arnold Palmers, tapenade (olive/anchovies relish), and fresh and kettle corn.. I wish there was a place like this within walking distance of where I live because I would shop here on a weekly basis.

 Butterfly garden starter kit. You can see the cocoons suspended below:

We then walked around the Winter Park area some more checking out a couple of shops here and there. Last year, my mom met me in Winter Park and we went out to lunch at a cutesy restaurant called Paris Bistro that gave you the impression of being outside when you were actually inside. Since we passed by that area, I grabbed a couple of photos and sent them to her to see if she recognized it, which she did immediately.

One of the walkways next to a park:

It was such a beautiful day this weekend that everyone was enjoying it! Even this little turtle that posed for a picture:

Since we had more time to kill, we rode over to Lake Mary to check out a charity car show hosted by the American Lung Association. With a donation you got a wrist band that allowed you to get two beers as you walked around checking out the cars.

We saw lots of pretty cars.

Kellie got a photo with this beautiful Aston Martin and posted it on facebook as if her dad bought it for her birthday. If you know Kellie, you would understand how believable that would be... but unfortunately for her, that didn't happen this year. She received lots of comments/texts shortly after. :)

We found out Kellie's dad was in town, so we went back to her place to grab a quick shower and head out to meet him for a little while before our other best friend Jessica and her husband showed up.

Waiting on me...

We met up Kellie's dad and friends at this restaurant called Francescos Ristorante and Pizzeria to enjoy some wine and appetizers. I know I post about restaurants a lot, but I seriously REALLY enjoyed the food here, and we only had a couple of appetizers! We had calamari (non-fried -- don't want it any other way anymore), mussels (best I've ever had), and real authentic Italian cheese pizza (the tomato sauce was to die for). Everything was so fresh and tasty that I would make the drive here to eat the next time I'm in the Orlando area. I was told that there is a similar place in Lakeland called Romeo's Pizzeria, which I will definitely visit as well when I'm in the Plant City area again.

The friends of Kellie's dad were affiliated with the restaurant and giving some background information on it. If I remember correctly, he said the oven they use is straight out of Italy, and they built the bricks around it to fit it in. Cool story.

We had a good time, but it was time to head to a liquor store and then back to Kellie's to get ready for the real party. My poor teeth were getting stained red from the wine already! ha
Jamie drove us back since we had a couple of glasses and were feeling pretty good.

Kellie couldn't find her keys to her apartment at first.. so she dumped out her entire purse on the sidewalk.

 She finally found them ... in her car. hehe

Jessica and Brett arrived and we finished getting ready to head out to dinner. These are some of my favorite people ever.

The original plan was to go to the Cheesecake Factory, but there was a 45 minute wait, so we walked over to Lime Fresh Mexican Grill which worked out even better, in my opinion.

Jamie got a trick straw:

We went back to the liquor store to grab some more liquor since Jessica and Brett left their baby at her Jessica's mom's house. It was seriously time to party.

We settled on Patron.

I'm not usually a Patron fan, but since Jamie woke up hungover free the other morning after 6 shots, I thought he might just be right that its worth the extra money.

Shot 1:

Shots 2 and 3:

Okay - we were ready to go to Downtown Orlando for their Mardi Gras Bar Crawl.

Bar 1 was Independent Bar which started with 90's music -- Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, etc. We didn't stay here too long.

Found this photo online outside of bar 1:

Bar 2 was a cool bar called Latitudes, which is actually on a roof top. Since we left the first bar early, we were able to grab a seat at a table. (Thank goodness!)

A big group of Kellie's friends showed up:

One of my favorite friends of Kellie, Caitlin. :)

And shots:

And more shots:

Also found this online: 

On to the next bar, Ember.

Things were starting to get a little fuzzy for the birthday girl by now, but we were having a blast... mixed with a little nuisance of one of the guys, but he was scared off eventually (for a little while anyway).

Jamie getting us some more shots of Patron:

After Ember was the final bar we'd go to called "Wall St Street Party". This was a little confusing since it was so crowded and there seemed to be lots of bars involved, but it was cool still.

 Before the night started Kellie had told us about some shots there called "Apple Pie Moonshine" shots. I honestly forgot about them until we got here, but after one smell of one, we all wanted to try them. Pretty sure I had 2 they were that good.

And that's when Jessica and Brett headed back home to Tampa. (Thanks again, Brett, for being the DD!)

We continued on, running into friends of Kellie here and there:

There's a big giant seat outside one of the bars that Jamie and I were able to sit on while Kellie was mingling. I wanted to sit on it just to sit, but other people wanted photos sitting in it, so we didn't get to sit for long.

More random photos:

 The trees had lights that looked like they were dripping off the branches. I thought they were so neat.

In the last photo above, you'll see some lit up beaker looking things that ended up being an "Oxygen Bar". Jamie spotted this and convinced me to check it out. Apparently they hook up a breathing tube to you that has different scents. The guy was saying it's supposed to give you a better buzz, yatta yatta. It's basically a big rip off, in my opinion, but now we can say we did it.

There were giant beads sitting on the table, so because it was such a rip off to do this weird breathing thing, I took the beads with me.

By this point, we were getting pretty tired and were about ready to head back to Kellie's.

We grabbed a taxi and let Kellie tell the guy where to go.

After going the wrong way and $30 later... we made it back to Kellie's. I thought I was going to puke my brains out, so I chugged a bunch of water and munched on some kettle corn from the farmers market earlier that day.

I don't remember taking this photo until I reviewed the photos the next morning. I never ended up throwing up, and my headache wasn't too bad. The only embarrassing part was the kettle corn bag sitting on the coffee table was almost empty now. haha!

It was a wonderful weekend spent with Kellie. I already miss her so much and wish I lived closer to her and Jessica both. Jamie and I packed our bags and loaded up to head to Plant City for the day. I told Kellie I wanted a "next morning" photo.. so we took one as she said "don't post this on facebook". (Sorry, Kellie! I love you!) She's such a champ because as we were leaving, she was on her way to Rollins to study all day.