Mary Kathryn Covert Steel and CNN Worldwide Director of Public Relations Matt Dornic are celebrating their birthdays in Raleigh, NC with an intense five-day party with friends and family that ends tomorrow. Their actual shared birthday is today. MKCS, a public affairs strategist at FTI Consulting, is the wife of Michael Steel, spokesman to House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). Steel is present for the birthday festivities, as are a host of Washingtonians that include GWU’s Nick Massella, CBS’s Christine Delargy, Mark Paustenbach, Brunswick Group’s Cat Hill and Glenn Ballard and three very rambunctious dogs, one of whom gets separation anxiety if the sun rises or if you glance at him wrong.

On Saturday night the crew attended a Lynyrd Skynyrd/Allman Brothers concert in which a “Capture the Redneck” contest ensued. All tuckered out from the long evening that may or may not have included moonshine, here you see Dornic slumbering (?) in the back of a red pickup along with pictures of a bunch of his new friends (some with shirts, some without) he met that evening. The birthday boy woke a little later demanding Bojangles’ chicken, spicy french fries, sweet tea and 300 packets of honey mustard.

Happy birthday to Covert Steel and Dornic!