Thanksgiving is for the kids.... right?

The magic man has got the attention of Shamus.

Darryl and Stacey invited us round for the American thanksgiving weekend for dinner, turkey and mashed potatoes, the first of I'm sure many turkey dinners. The great thing about Darryl and Stacey's place besides that they are great hosts is that the kids are there, and they seem to love all the attention. Jeff and I were trying to teach Shamus to knuckle up. In the above picture though he seemed to like my impression of the magic man for Talledega Nights.

Fair play to Darryl and Stacey though for entertaining and cooking for all of us, that is no easy task, but they seemed to do it effortlessly. Unfortunately the batteries on my camera ran out before The Wii was set up. But if you're interested take a look over on Steve and Cari's blog for some more pictures.

Mr November? Or is Paul getting ready for a political career?

"Darryl... Where do you want me to put this?"

Tanya's Birthday and Jeff does Shatner

Tanya gets serinaded by the Mariachi's

Birthday season comes to a close for 2006 with Blakes girlfriend Tanya's birthday, where else to go on a cold November night but a Mexican resturant in the old port, complete with Mariachi's, and the textbook shots of tequila. Happy Birthday Tanya.

Is it my turn now?

Realising I still hate doing shots of tequila.

After dinner it was off to a Karaoke bar downtown, I have to admit that when we arrived outside and even once we walked inside it was still hard to work out where we were. It appeared to be hosted in a seedy backroom, so as you can imagine we were all a little dubious. You could say I'm not the biggest fan of Karaoke, but that might have something to do with most bars, you are in front of a crowd of people all trying to live out their pop star fantasies.

But we were shown into a small room in the back of a cafe where we would have the Karaoke machine to ourselves without worrying about being booed off too much. Tanya started things off, and once everyone had loosened up a little the songs began spilling out. I sang Wild Thing, and of course Wonderwall (badly), what ever happened to my angelic voice from my primary school days? (puberty), Blake showed us why white men shouldn't rap by doing his best Vanilla Ice impression. But as soon as Jeff unleashed his Shatner it was all over.

Jeff letting his inner Shatner out, singing Lucy in the Sky

Gordon Wedding: Justin's dance

Justin you really are the lord of the dance, this happened at the end of the night, and was close to legendary, I didn't catch the end, but trust me when I tell you that he completed a knee slide across the length of the floor.

Look at his poise, interesting curves and artistic movement, he had everyone in the room clapping together at one point, it truly was amazing.

I give you... Justin.

Gordon Wedding: The Party

Saima dancing, not sure who this guy is though.

After all the ceremony and dinner, it was time to celebrate the Gordon's union, with a good ole party, I loved how the whole day saw us going between the 2 main rooms, it was a really good way of meeting mingling, as whilst we would be in the second room having a drink and talking, our hosts would magically transform the main room for the next stage of the day.

Kate and Ben, he said she tasted of strawberries.

So the bride and groom had their first dance, I apologise as I can't remember what it was, Andy's brothers kid was dancing with his brother, in try Peter Kay style, doing knee slides. Whilst the rest of us were laughing a joking around. The drink was flowing and again Ben and Huw had me in stitches, the great thing about today was that it felt like we were back at university.

I'm lucky to have such good friends, the ironic thing is that James and Andy were the 2 first people I met at university, when I say the first people I literally mean as soon as I had arrived and went straight down to the freshers party, James was the first person I was introduced too, the second... Andy. The rest is history, which ultimately led to today, turns out I actually met Justin as well that night, but it wasn't until he moved in with us after a drunken coversation in the old nightclub I used to work in, that we met the Justin we all know now. After 9 years we're all still great friends and I was really glad to be with them all today.

Sharon, a friend of ours from Bristol, was on our table.

Justin with what appears to be a fireball in his hand.

Gordon Wedding: The Ceremony

Just Married, the Gordon's sign the register.

Cutting the cake.

Obviously no pictures of the ceremony as thats a little rude, Sharon of course looked stunning, Andy and James seemed hide any nerves well, Bens poem was flawless and everything went smoothly. It was great to be here, especially since I was there at the start of their relationship.

Me with some of the lads.

James, The Gordon's and I in the bar afterwards.

Saima looking fantastic and me smiling too much

Chepstow: Hotel

The Groom and Bestman, Andy's been working on his posing for Photograph's.

With Andy and Sha getting married on the Saturday, and with me knowing what I'm like with time keeping, we headed down to Chepstow on the Friday evening to the venue.

The whole wedding was taking place at a country house so everything was going to be on site. With all the uni lot also there I knew that we would have fun. Even though I saw everyone the last time I was back we still had plenty to talk about, and with me being the last to arrive everyone was already there to great me. Even the Bride had popped down for a quick one (drink) before the big day.

Ben as usual had me in fits, think that I'm an easy target, as is the norm there were plenty of stories about the houses we all used to live in, and plenty of embarrasing stories and insight for Saima into my uni life. Ben attempted to explain his theory on picking the hidden glass, something to do with 75% of the time you'll be right if you swap your first answer... I didn't really get it, it was funny at the time though. But that might of also had something to do with the amount of alcohol that had already been consumed. The picture below was taken whilst Ben was placing the glass (he asked me to look away btw).

Ben trying to explain his swapping theory to me, after a few drinks

James about to reveal the time capsule tin.

In our last year in the house in Newport James took a load of stuff we had lying around and put it in a tin marking in do not open until 2020. Well we couldn't wait, and with all of us being in the same place it seemed like a good enough time, fair enough it had only been 6 years, it was still interesting to see what was in there.

We opened it up and discoved plenty of picture of Andy's face on page 3 girls, basically Andy's face on everything. Some Hypervalue (a cheaper poundstretcher/dollarstore) party leftovers, and some pictures of me with a shaved head, and underwear over my trousers.

Anyway, we all arranged to meet up for a swim and golf the next morning, after all of those drinks, that seemed like a bit of a stretch.

Flying Visit back to England

Panoramic view of Bristol from the hotel.

So I'm back in England again, seems like I'm being spoilt now, but with Andy and Sharon’s wedding happening on the weekend, and with me already missing a lot of my university friends' weddings seeming like they all decided to get married as soon as I left for Montreal. But this time I was going to make sure I was in attendance, after one of the easiest flights back from Montreal I've ever had, I was refreshed and ready to go.

Saima met me from the airport and decided that she was taking me to Bristol. I was only going to be there for a night before heading to Chepstow so I want to say sorry to those of you that I didn't see. I just didn't have the time.

Some more pictures from Saturday.

Me looking a little drunk...

... And this is how I saw most of the night.

A little look at the decor, keeping the Ali Baba theme firmly in your mind.

Just after I was hit in the face, I found it funny... Afterwards.

Thought that I'd give you a little more from Saturday, first up if anyone is in Montreal and fancies a night of Belly Dancing and glkjfalds food, then head on over to the resturant we went to it's called La Couscoussiere d Ali Baba, yes I thought it translated as "The Scouser" as well. The atmosphere is really fun and the prices are reasonable as well although everyone paid for my dinner, but I was told that the price was reasonable at least.

Diary of a Birthday: Pt2 (After)

So I was kept in the dark right up until the moment I walked up to the resturant, Jeff and I had to kill some time, so whilst in the village we ended up in a bar, and when 2 blokes are in the village holding bottles of wine... well you know how it looks.

Once we'd finished our game of pool and our extremely hetrosexual pints, we headed on over to the resturant, with me still not knowing where we were supposed to be heading, until we get outside a small belly dancing resturant, I'm hoping that the video below will give you a flavour of the night, as I've put together a little montage with a special soundtrack, the night involved plenty of alcohol, plenty of comedy antics and plenty of food. Yeah the service took ages, but it was more about the entertainment than anything else, I mean how many times are you going to get the chance to go to a belly dancing resturant?

I really appreciated everyone turning up, and it made for a really fun atmosphere, could of sworn someone brought blue nun, but I just stuck to my red. Thanks to Paul for my presents, and everyone else for the Habs jersey, which is awesome. Then we were off to the second part of the night. 80's night.

La Tulipe, the same place we went to see Kasabian has an 80's night and it seemed like a good idea, so we get in neck a couple of shots of Jaggermeister, and hit the dancefloor, glowstick and sweatbands. I always said that I wouldn't been seen dead holding a glowstick, but it seemed appropriate tonight. Can't remember much more of the night, but I do know that I had a great time. Not a bad way to spend the last of birthday of your 20's.

Diary of a Birthday: Pt1 (Before?)

29 Today, last year of my 20's as my sister Karen had great pleasure in pointing out, as a kid I used to think that was old, but now I'm there I like to think I'm just getting in my prime... I remember when I was 20 and thinking things such as if I were in the NBA I'd be one of the youngest players in the league, and then thinking that there was still plenty of time to realise that. Or maybe I could of been one of the youngest Pixar animators. But neither of those things happened, but plenty of other stuff did and getting there was half the fun.

Ok so I'm not entirely sure whats going on tonight, I know that Jeff and possibly Jolyne have something planned, but he's refused to let me in on it. Thanks to Mum, Dad, and Family for the cards, and a big thanks to Saima for my Stevie Gerrard autobiography, which I opened whilst watching Liverpool play Reading on Sportsnet this morning (very fitting).

I'm off to town in a bit, since it was payday yesterday I'm going to go and spend some money, and probably get my suit dry cleaned for the wedding in a couple of weeks. So this is before as I wanted to post something on my birthday, and I'm sure that the next post will have pictures of whatever it is we do.