Summer nights

Great weekend, great friends....

The best friends are the ones that always ask, always lend an ear and always make me laugh.

This week was a rough week for me so I ready to close the office doors at 5 PM and leave it in the past.

We started off the weekend with a phone call from Jason and Wes that they were in town for Jason's girlfriend's graduation party and wanted to meet up for dinner. We met them at 131 Main, one of our favorite restaurants here in Charlotte. After dinner we met up with Lisa and Ben who were in visiting from Atlanta at Village Bistro in Ballantyne. We sat outside and listened to the live music with everyone and at Kilwin's ice cream. What a treat! I LOVE Ben's girlfriend Lisa. She and I just click. Ben is one of Philip's best friends from growing up and I am so thrilled that he has found Lisa! We love spending time with them when they come to visit from Atlanta and can't wait to go visit them in August at their place! I already miss her :)

Saturday we made a much needed visit to the gym, ran errands, got ready for father's day brunch and relaxed. We met up with Lisa & Ben and Emma & Dave at Cantina 1511, my favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner and drinks. Emma is 22 weeks pregnant with a boy and looks so cute! Ironically I saw an ex-boyfriend, Marcus from right out of college who used to live in Raleigh and worked with me at Misys atCantina with his girlfriend... we never made eye contact but it was quite random! After dinner we went to Angry Ale's to sit on the patio and we ran into Sarah Kaplan, Jason Trumpeter and Bo Mechanic good freiends of ours. It was quite a random place so we were very excited to see them. Lisa and I were a pool team against Ben and Emma and we definltey lost when we downed the eight ball in the hole! Gotta love the CHEESE photo we took. We played pool, shuffle board, enjoyed drinks and the roaches that were crawling around on the patio. It was disgusting. It was great to spend time with everyone but it was time to call it a night after the roaches were rampant!

Sunday was FATHER'S DAY!!!

We all had brunch at Philip's parents. It was so yummy. Each of us brought something to add to the brunch. We had way too much food, which is always a good thing because Philip and I get to take home the left overs. Bagels and Lox, Egg Casserole, Blintz Souffle, Fresh Fruit, Blueberry Bread, and coffee! This year's Father's Day presents were some of the best yet! We got Dad Schreibman a new golf putter that he had been eyeing for quite some time and we got Dad Bass a newly embroidered polo shirt with his company logo on it, that I designed! They both LOVED their presents and we were so excited to be able to be there to celebrate with them. This week was a tough week for Mike (my father in-law) so we were so glad to see that he was in such great spirits for Father's Day. His Parkinson's is doing some crazy things with his mind right now and we are hoping that this is just a blip on the radar! We sure hope he is feeling better and back on the golf course in no time!

Sunday night we went to Pops in the Park with Kim, Payam, Soraya (their daughter) , Josh and Pamela. The Charlotte Symphony puts on Pops in the Park during the month of June on Sunday evenings. If you have never been and you live in Charlotte you must go! Everyone you could possibly imagine comes out...and if you like to watch people like we do you would have a blast. We sat on the hill which was quite challenging for a 1 year old who wanted to run around in the grass but Soraya was a tropper. She loved eating all of the food we brought. She was definitely the star of the night as she ate all of her food and got it all over her face! We brought lots of dips, salads, wine and great friends and enjoyed a night of Latin-Spanish music.(That was the theme for this week!) We are looking forward to Pops in the Park next week with Broadway music and the company of Federation's Young Adult Division for a great night!

You can see that Pops in the Park attracts quite a large crowd. This is by far one of my most favorite Charlotte summer time events. Note to self: bring bug spray next week!