Birthday Weekend Fun

Note: I tried posting this with pictures about four times, but the pictures don't want to post. Maybe I'll try again later, but I wanted to get this one up!

I've been having some pretty fantastic weekends lately, and this past one was no exception. It was my birthday!!

Well, my birthday was not technically until Sunday, but I had a whole fun weekend of celebrating with friends and Mark.

Friday night when I got home from work, Mark told me that I could open one birthday gift that night instead of waiting for all of them until Sunday. I was so glad that he let me open one - I love birthday presents! He presented me with a little Neiman Marcus bad, and I was immediately excited. I opened it up, and found a large bottle of Missoni fragrance, with matching scented lotion. I was so thrilled! I had been obsessing over this perfume for three weeks, ever since I first read about it in Vogue and first smelled it in Chicago. It has the most amazingly sexy scent you've ever smelled.

After opening my gifts, I quickly got ready for my girls' night out with my favorite MN gals. We were headed to Figlio in Uptown for dinner before going out for drinks to celebrate my birthday. I always love going to Figlio for dinner. I ordered the salmon small plate, which really wasn't a small plate at all. It was about 4 or 5 oz of fish, with a nice-sized portion of delicious mashed potatoes and vegetable medley. It was delicious! (Side note: I always thought that I hated salmon. I wouldn't touch the stuff. Until one night I was out to dinner with Mark and his parents, and salmon was served as one of the courses. I didn't want to be rude, so I politely tasted the dish. It was delicious. Since then, I've become a big salmon fan.) With my tasty salmon dinner I had ordered a Sugar Mama Martinin, which was strawberry infused vodka with champagne and fresh strawberries. Delicious! After two of those, a great meal, and fun conversation, we decided to go over to Bar Abilene for some additiona drinks and chatting, and maybe some dancing. While there, we had a Jell-O shot in honor of my birthday, something I hadn't had in about 3 years. I had never been to Bar Abilene before, but had heard some pretty good things about it. It was a bit early in the night yet, around 11:00 or so, so the dancing hadn't really started up yet. We enjoyed the time there though, continuing with our chatting and laughter of course. After Bar Abilene we headed to The Local, a favorite among our friends, to end the night with one last drink. It was a great night out with my friends to celebrate my birthday.

Saturday night, Mark and I headed to the Rock Bottom Brewery to meet up with Megan and Ryan before our evening at the theater. We had tickets as part of our season passes to see Annie, one of my all-time favorites. I used to watch the movie about once a week when I was a kid, so I was excited about seeing it on stage. Dinner at Rock Bottom was great - Mark had a good turkey wrap and I had a Spicy Spinach Dip - both were quite tasty. I also had a bottle of their Rock Bottom Root Beer - so good! If you are ever at a Rock Bottom, get the Root Beer! After dinner, we headed to the theater and I was giddy to see the show. There were so many little girls all dressed up for the theater - it was so cute! Many of them had little hats and little handbags and little patent leather shoes - it reminded me of me as a kid. The show was wonderful. I tried really hard not to sing along, but I did find myself humming a few bars.

On Sunday, my actual birthday, I woke up really early to laze around for the day. Mark had finals, so I had the afternoon to myself. I went for a run around Lake Calhoun - it was a most beautiful day! About 45 degrees and sunny. Perfect for an afternoon run. After my run, I came home and spruced myself up for a big dinner out. Mark came home and got ready himself, and then I got to open the rest of my gifts from him. Mark is going to take me to get some new running shoes for my birthday. Plus, he gave me a great new tri training outfit. With that, plus the great new watch that my parents gave me, I'm extra motivated to get out there and train.

After opening gifts, we walked over to Nicollet Mall to have a drink at the Millenium Hotel before our big dinner at Manny's.

After our drink, and after waiting and salivating all day at the thought of a great Manny's steak, we headed over to the Hyatt and up to the second floor to being our culinary event. We started out with a great bottle of Rosenblum Zinfandel, a favorite of mine. Then we had crab cakes, which I've been craving for about four weeks. I love crab cakes. I can't get enough of them. After that little morsel of goodness, I was thrilled when my 10 oz filet mignon arrived at the table. The filet is served with a side of bernaise sauce, and is the most succulent, tender piece of meat you can find, I swear. It tasted so good! Better than I had remembered, even. I ate very slowly, taking in each little bite and enjoying the great flavors further enhanced by the great bottle of wine. As a side dish, we had Manny's famous hash browns, browned to perfection. Mark had the 20 oz New York, which was also really great (but not as much as my filet!). We were so stuffed full after dinner that I didn't have room for dessert, which made me really sad. Not only because it was my birthday and I wanted to have some sort of birthday cake, but also because Manny's has a great brownie on the menu. It's got two layers of brownie separated by think caramel, and then it's smothered in vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, nuts and strawberries. I was really sad about missing out on that, so Mark ordered one to take home with us! By the time I got home and my stomach settled, I could cram at least a little piece in! Mark even sung Happy Birthday to me.

All in all, it was really a fantastic birthday weekend. I feel very lucky to have been able to spend it doing wonderfully fun things with wonderful people!