JJ's Dinner Party

Saturday night our dearest friend JJ celebrated her 25th birthday for the 5th time (sounds better than saying the big 3 - 0.)  Chip and I had a dinner party for her with a few surprise guests!  It was so much fun to entertain!  It's the first time I've been able to use my grandmothers dining room table to it's capacity of 10.  I put in the two extra leaves and pulled out the extra long white linen table cloth.  I think I'm the first to be able to utilize the leaves and cloth since my grandmother.  I set the table with my china and pottery pieces.  It was great to put my nice things to use.
*side note:  I don't know that I've told you all the story about my china.  When I lived in Oxford I went to a garage sale in a nice neighborhood and there was a 13 piece place setting, dinner plates, salad plates, tea cups, tea cup saucers, 3 or 4 serving platters and maybe some other stuff.  It's Lenox Olympia - the solid creamy white plate with a fine silver rim around it.  So, are you envisioning all of this?  50 bucks.  yup $50 for all of that goodness.  The lady had registered for all of that china when she married the first time and they divorced and she was remarried and decided to rid of it.  I bought it and the rest is history. 
Ok so back to the dinner party.  Chip grilled fresh redfish on the shell that he caught the other weekend on the coast.  We had grilled basalmic asparagus, rice, bread and a salad with strawberries, feta and sunflower seeds.

The set up

 For dessert I made a baked alaska cake.  I don't mean to brag (yes I do) but it was awesome!

The birthday girl with the baked alaska.
I felt bad because I forgot the candles!

Opening up her gift.
I made her a book of photos from over the past year.

The photo book was really neat.  It had pictures of Harvey and Hill together at 1 month old and over the course of time the things they'd done together.  Also pictures of things we'd done together.
Here is my favorite...Jimmy Buffett (July 2010)

Love you Jennifer Warrington!