A Caper Well-Executed
We celebrated Kathleen's 40th birthday on Saturday.
20-some-odd people (family, friends and a couple of friends of friends) got together at Chez Zee, an eatery favored by Kathleen, but unattended by us for a couple of years. The guests executed the "Surprise!" of the Surprise Party flawlessly, assisted greatly by the professional Chez Zee staff. Kathleen's joy in seeing her family and friends gathered to celebrate, well, celebrate her almost overwhelmed her initially.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to everyone who attended, especially those who came to Austin from parts elsewhere. We kept the secret for over five months and carried out quite a little caper. Thanks as well to my co-conspirators that I asked to perform various bits of extra subterfuge - those really brought the surprise home. As it turns out, she had suspicions all the way until we walked past the Chez Zee banquet room without going in. At that point, she thought "OK, Dinner with Frank and Michie. This will be nice". Thirty seconds later and she faced a completely different reality.
Some photos are available on my Flickr stream, and I hope to have a 30 second video uploaded sometime. As more images pour in, I'll update here.
Posted at 09:34AM Jan 26, 2009 by schnee in General |
Engagement, x10
Recently, Kathleen and I hosted a party for our good friends Jacque and Brian. They are getting married in August. As it will be a destination wedding, we held the engagement party in Dallas, at the Times Ten Cellars, a great winery and cellar. I found the Syrah yummy, as was the Pinot Grigio - Kathleen loves the Grenache. The rest of the wines were pretty good as well, but those two were my favorites.
Kathleen and I arrived about an hour before the party started. She busied herself setting out the food (catered by Central Market) and, after confirming that she didn't need my help, I spent the time doing some natural light photography of the tasting room and other places in the building.
The rest of the "artistic photos" can be found at the Picasa portfolio.
The lead photo (above) show a reflection of Jacque's and Brian's silhouettes as they entered the winery. Looking quite fashionable, Jacque was wearing a cute little sun dress and Brian went with the safe-but-stylish pink shirt with khaki pants (no cuffs nor pleats, if I recall correctly).
The other guests started to arrive and within a half hour, we had pretty much everyone that was going to be there. I actually put down the camera quickly near the start so I could enjoy the party, but brought it out again to photograph some of the festivities.
The bride and the maid-of-honor (and my lovely wife) seemed to be enjoying themselves. If they look a bit out of focus, that is completely due to me not being completely comfortable with the camera controls after having 5 or 6 glasses of wine.
Eventually, the gifts came out, and, being semi-gag, a small crowd gathered to watch the mix of embarrassment and fun. There is a story about the little tiki-statue turned lamp which was pretty amusing when I heard it, but since that was after 7 or 8 glasses of wine, I can't remember it. However, it was quite obvious that the gift had serious sentimental value to both Jacque and Brian, and it was very well-received.
Brian got a sweet pair of cufflinks (a little small for my taste) that Jacque just adored.
Everyone gathered for group photos, Brian gave an emotional and heartfelt thank-you to the guests and then the photographer got up on a chair.
Kathleen, Ron and Jacque had a group photo-op and then we started to clean up.
Posted at 03:45PM Apr 11, 2008 by schnee in General |
