lxforever

Technically my birthday’s been being celebrated for over two weeks now, but that’s OK. (We started with a birthday lunch/brunch at Jack and Laureen’s on the 12th—yummy and fun.) And the party will continue awhile longer yet, as my Mom and Dad are coming up next weekend and we’re flying to Chicago the weekend after that…yaaaay! So hooray for that.

But I want to talk about now. So my birthday celebration this weekend started with Jeff taking me out to a surprise fancy dinner. We got dolled up and he drove us to Ristorante Luci in St. Paul. We’d been to Luci Ancora some years back, but always had trouble getting a reservation at Ristorante Luci itself, so this was an amazing surprise!! It was super tiny inside, only 13 tables, and totally jam-packed. Very cute. Our server’s name was Jeff and he was impeccable and right on the ball. Fine dining at its finest. This was a no-holds-barred dinner, as Sue had generously paid for it as my birthday gift. Wonderful!

We started off right away with bruschetta (side note, I always want to pronounce it correctly but I’m afraid people think I’m a snob, so I don’t, but then they end up thinking I’m stupid…annoyingness), because how could we not? We then ordered a bottle of Chianti (after finding the non $80-a-bottle side of the wine list—no-holds-barred does NOT include $80 bottles of wine! Sorry, just can’t do it) which we totally smashed which was fun. Monrusso or something, very tasty. After much discussion—so many good things!—we each ordered a half pasta and a secondi piatti as well. The primi piatti was fusilli with chicken and vegetables for Jeff and homemade fettuccine with pesto for me. My pasta was light as air and incredible. Then on to meat—Jeff had veal with risotto (appropriate, as he’d been asking about risotto for awhile now), and I had pork in a honey truffle glaze with baked apples and sauteed greens. WOW. It was perfectly done and just the right amount of food and ratios and everything. Wonderful. We capped it off with an amazing apricot-plum-raspberry cheesecake for Jeff (the best blend of fruits; who would’ve thought?) and a vanilla bean creme brulee for me (something I’d been wanting for awhile); and another glass of wine for Jeff and a cappuccino for me. Truly a wonderful meal and pulling out all the stops. SO NICE!!! So nice to linger over dinner, too—by the time we left it was almost 10.

We then thought about watching a movie (even rented a couple) but that wine really made us sleepy so it was home to hang out and then hit the hay.

…..

OK, now it’s been a few days and I need to pick this up from where I left off. Soooooo anyway that was Saturday. What a lovely evening! I should note that Friday we FINALLY ordered our new front and back door (*gulp* directed at our bank account, but *yay* for working doors), which was monumental. My new idea is no new house projects in 2010 – even if that means using pliers to make the bathtub work! In my dreams. Alright. Moving on.

I slept horribly Saturday night, probably due to the combination of a whole bottle of wine + an after-dinner cappuccino. Gah. Alas, I awoke Sunday morning in time to attend 8:30 church (SHOCKER! I know! I’m being serious here, not sarcastically saying ‘shocker’, either! Well, listen, I’m a Godmother here people, I have a bargain to uphold). Anyway, church was nice, it’s a good little church I attend, and a few people said happy birthday after I got to stand up for it (note: not the only reason I attended). I then purchased myself a birthday Starbucks (Cinnamon Dolce Latte—ahh, yes, it is fall, and as much as I love summer, I don’t HATE fall; in fact, I love it), got what I wanted for dinner that evening at the fancy grocer’s (sushi! + Izze; Kowalski’s) and headed home, where I encountered a just-awaking Jeff. I cooked us up some scrambled eggs with tomato and spinach and cheese and some smoothies, and we had a lovely breakfast on the patio. Sunny! Beautiful! Lovely crisp brightly colored fall day!

We finished breakfast and opened gifts. Far! Too! Many! gifts and cards, from too many people. I am incredibly spoiled (in case you didn’t already realize this). Anna’s creepy baby eraser cracked me up. <3 it. Jeff got me, among other great things (adorable gymnast figurine—he's so good with surprises), an iPod Touch (another—BIG—surprise!), which I am completely addicted to already. Lists! Crosswords! Calendar! Email! All in my hand, all of the time! (Well, not the email, but almost!) We spent a lot of time playing with that and on the real phone calling people back...my dear well-wishers. Finally we made a plan and packed a lunch and got on our bikes. Best part of the day...so beautiful out!!! I wish it hadn't cooled down so quickly, because fall bike rides are absolutely gorgeous, indeed. We rode to Lake Harriet and had a picnic at the Bandshell. It was mostly deserted—the Vikes were playing (Jeff taped it, bless his HEART for waiting!!!)—and we enjoyed the 'performance' of two crazy little girls battling it out on the empty stage. Ha! After sunning ourselves in the windy day and eating our tasty turkey-artichoke-spinach buns and sweet potato chips and sparkling water, we continued on our way. Destination: Grand Ol' Creamery on Cedar, where I had birthday cake ice cream. YUM. The plan from there was to bike around 'our' lake, Lake Nokomis, but suddenly it turned dark and rainy and SUPER windy, so we headed home. Two hot showers and warm fuzzy clothes later, we set ourselves up in front of the TV with sushi and a movie. The movie was horrible—that'll teach us to try renting movies—but the food was good and the company even better. Snuggling! New favorite chilly activity. Oh wait, that's nothing new :). Finally we retired to an early bedtime and my amazing 28th bday was over. (Except for all the celebrations sure to come this week, and next, and next...;) heh heh heh.) What a wonderful day/weekend...thank you, thank you, thank you! I need to write more. Michael does, and I love reading his updates. It can't take that much time. I really will write more. I hope. Or maybe I will write more, but elsewhere or about other things. Vamos a ver. Anyway...28! So far, so good. Later.

This journal was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 4:31 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.