Chris' Going Away Weekend of Epicness Day 2 (Night)

We call ourselves "The Geek Mob"

After the awesome day at the park, several of us came back to my place to get ready for a local French Restaurant called Le Chene. We of course go all out because it's Chris' last adventure with us for a while. So we all suit up and go all fancy. It was some good times because all my favorite people were there, Chris, Robert, Jes, Jen, Rupert, Aaron, Scott, Will and Olivia. After we were all pretty I took a bunch of photos and in particular one that is by far one of my favorites of the weekend. (above)

After we got dressed we headed over to the restaurant. Now this restaurant is expensive... $30 to $50 a meal. So we figured folks would be dressed nice and we wouldn't stick out.. well we were wrong. Everyone in the restaurant were in jeans and shirts (guess I should expect that being in a rural area) and yes we were the only ones in suits and dress' and got many a stares as we walked through the place. Even though I had made reservations it took another 20 minutes to seat us. Dallas and Brian joined us at the restaurant.

Once seated everyone looked over the menu and discussed what they were going to have. Alot of us decided to get something different and then share some of it with others so we could taste a bit of everything. Chris is always an adventurous eater, it's one of many things I admire about him. He got escargot and believe it or not I had one. Never in my life did I think I would eat a snail but if you get pass the though of eating a slug it was quite tasty in it's butter and garlic sauce. For dinner I went with something safe, a chicken and paste dish, as I knew everyone around me was going crazy. During the night I got to try rabbit (very tasty), frog legs (which of course Chris got) they were okay, a bit of a fishy taste. I tried Buffalo ribeye and various veggies. The food was pretty amazing and well worth the price. The night was perfect and we closed down the place.

After dinner we all headed back to my place to continue the party. We started with gifts for Chris.Jes and I wanted to get Chris some going away presents from the group. So she got him these awesome Star Wars bookends while I got him a Boba Fett plushie, Boba Fett t-shirt and a Jedi Academy robe (this is what I got at Disneyland when I went shopping a few blogs back). But the gift I was looking forward to giving him the most was this collage of pictures and thoughts from the group. I contacted the core group of friends and asked if they wanted to hand write some thoughts about their friendship with Chris and over the next few weeks I got all these as well as printing out a ton of picture and created this crafty poster filled with good times, adventures and love from the past year. When Chris opened that and took a moment to read everyone's comments and look at the pictures it hit me that he was leaving us. He hugged the picture frame and I was doing everything in my power not to cry.. and even though Chris isn't a crier, I could tell he appreciated the though and effort that went into that gift.

After the gift opening we all got more drinks and started to play the card game Asshole. But I wasn't really in the mood. The gift giving was tough for me. It made Chris' leaving that much more real and I fell into a kind of depression and couldn't get myself out of. I was hoping the alcohol would bring out happy Kenny but it just made Kenny even more sad. I felt bad because everyone knew something was up and kept asking me if I was okay and I hated myself for ruining what was such a fantastic day. By 1am we were all tired and several folks had left, Scott, Jen and Rupert. That left Chris, Robert, Jes, Dallas, Brian, Aaron, Olivia and Will to find a place to crash and call it a night.

This day went from fun to fantastic to sadness for me. Let's hope I can pull myself out of this funk for Sunday.

You can see more pictures HERE