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| John, JoAnna, Kim, Jonathan, Shawna at Shula's |
After spending 2 weeks with John and JoAnna in Australia, we just had not had enough of them, so we decided to spend a weekend in Raleigh with the gang celebrating Jo's 43rd birthday. Keith had been in Atlanta the week before with work and Shawna was in Hartford the week before and after so it was quite an easy trip to make. We both arrived the Thursday night, with Keith getting in an hour earlier than Shawna so he, John, and Jo went to
Aladdin's Eatery in Brier Creek for a quick bite. Shawna's flight finally arrived and we met her at 9:30pm - the flight almost turned back to Baltimore due to snow in Raleigh. Shawna's late flight meant that we had to cancel going to Keith and Kate's - which was sad because they were off to the west coast the next day so we would not see them at all for the weekend. Duke was playing Georgia Tech that night so we stopped by a bar near John's house to watch the second half of the game before heading to bed. The beers were good, though the chili was not too fantastic as Shawna bit into a shard of glass! The waiter was pretty good about it (we did not really kick up a fuss) so the food was comped.
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| Shawna Happy With a Martini! |
We both had to work on Friday - so it was both of us and John on conference calls in the house almost the whole day. Shawna was able to take a break for lunch and meet Beth and Lisa at
Pei Wei for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, Keith had a conference call that lasted until 7:15pm EST so we just went to the
Flying Burrito for dinner and then went back to the house to play a few games.
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| Carbon Leaf at Cat's Cradle |
We woke up late on Saturday, so barely had time to do a slingshot around the
Washington Duke Golf Course before meeting Stephanie for an 11:30am lunch at
Fosters. Steph was 8.5 months pregnant - it was great to catch up with her for a while. We then zoomed over to the
Sheraton Chapel Hill: John and Jo had won two free nights there so we burned one of the nights so no one had to drink and drive. We first had a nap to enable us to make it longer that evening, then headed to the bar at
Shulas for a few pre-dinner drinks and the Virginia game. Dinner was at Shulas - joined by Kim and Jonathan, Steve and Amy, Phil and Joyce, Julie, and Teresa and Brandon. John bought the dinner so it was double-delicious! We continued dinner until 9:30pm, when we headed to
Cat's Cradle with John and Jo to see
Carbon Leaf. It was a fun show - we met Mark there. Following the show, someone had the brilliant idea to head across the road to
Milltown for 3 orders of French Fries. The good news is that the even more brilliant idea of heading to Time Out for a bucket of bones was not executed on!
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| Mark, John and Keith |
While the best of intentions for Sunday was to get in a walk, we woke up too late to squeeze that in. Instead, we headed back to Chez Douglas for a shower before heading to brunch at Phil and Joyce's new house. Wow - their new place is beautiful - almost 2 acres of land with a house only about 6 years old. Phil had just had the backyard graded to add a new workshop for his cars - because the 3 car garage was not enough! Everyone from the night before was able to make it except Steve/Amy/Julie - we tucked in to omelets, bacon, waffles, and breakfast potatoes, followed by a pie that Jonathan made.
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| Joyce Cooking Brunch |
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| Teresa and Brandon |
We made Sunday night an easy one - arranged
Waraji take-out sushi and watched
Winters Bone with Jennifer Lawrence (wow this was a slow movie!) before heading to bed. John took both of us to the airport on Monday morning, with Keith heading to Denver and Shawna back to Hartford.
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| Phil and Jonathan |
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