party party family family

It has been a weekend of diverse experiences. On Saturday, Jim took Evie out for a fun day (hopefully to be documented on this blog at some point) and I headed out with the girls for Jackie's hen party. Unlike the typical American bachelorette party, the Hen parties in England tend to be more than penis themed drunk fests (but, judging by the hen parties I've seen staggering through the tube stations, plenty of drinking happens, too). We all started out at a salon, where we pampered ourselves before we went out. I had my first pedicure since before Evie was born...nice!
The bride to be donned her very special bride to be boa and we hit the streets of Soho.

Since Evie was born, our going out experiences have been somewhat subdued, so it was a little surreal for me to be out in a place like Soho, where there were so many people and so many bars and so much happening. Obviously, I wasn't able to fully appreciate being out since I'm pregnant and was going the non-alcoholic route, but it was still fun to be part of so much energy. And one benefit to not being able to imbibe is not having a hangover the next morning.



There's nothing like a group of women dressed in similar outfits to encourage unattractive men to make stupid comments that they think are funny. Our first admirers were a bunch of toothless, wasted bums outside of the salon, followed by several more batches of hilarious (to themselves) idiots. I can't imagine what they said to the girls who were out in their skimpy outfits. We looked positively matronly compared to most of the hen parties we passed. Anyway,We waded through the crowds and eventually ended up at a Cuban club called Floridita. We felt like we had stepped onto the set of Scarface.
Bizarrely, one of the rules of the club/restaurant was that no one could wear feather boas or matching hen party pins. They said the feathers might fly into the food of other diners, but we weren't sure why we couldn't wear our pins. We might stick someone with them maybe? Or maybe they were just trying to keep it classy by not letting people wear common pins that said "Danger! Hen Party in Process!!!".

When we sat down, we were quickly greeted by our waitress who offered to show us the steak board. None of us wanted steak, so we declined. But no, she insisted. Apparently she HAD to show us the steak board. And so we sat and patiently listened to detailed information about each cut of steak that the restaurant offered then ordered vegetarian fajitas and fish dishes.
The music was great! A Latin band had the crowd up and dancing and there were some really impressive dancers in the mix. Latin dancing is so fun, but my large stomach was not cooperating with my attempts to move my hips in a vaguely coordinated way, so I kept the dancing to a minimum. Interesting song tidbit for non-Spanish speakers: Jackie told me that the song "La Cucaracha" (sp?) is about the cockroach who doesn't want to walk anymore because he's run out of marijuana. Hah!
(The woman with the guy smooching her in the middle of this picture was a REALLY good dancer and had great legs and 3 foot high heels. Elizabeth and Jackie had some pretty good moves, too!)

It was such a fun night, but I had to head home in anticipation of my early morning wake up call from Evie and a busy Sunday with friends. Today we headed north to have brunch our friends Carolina and Dave and their cute boys Santiago and Rafael. Rafael is only six months older than Evie, but, as usual she was more interested in the older Santi. They have a great back yard, so while we had a nice time catching up with Carolina and Dave, Evie was off having the time of her life with the boys. They played on S and R's awesome swing set, ran through the yard at high speed, picked vegetables from the garden and practiced their somersaults. It was a good day for all!