Happy Birthday!

This post should be about how wonderful Adam is because it was his birthday yesterday, but from my perspective, this blog is dedicated to how I pulled off a sweet birthday week!

He didn't really want his picture taken

Monday - Errands GALORE trying to everything ready for the week.  Weeks worth of grocery store, picked up Adam's birthday present, and stopped at Walgreen's for wrapping paper and a card (I have a huge appreciation for cards for any and no occasion what-so-ever; it's very important to always have a card to go with your gift).  

I actually told my mom when I was little that I was going to write cards for Hallmark when I grew up.  I have since taken a total different approach with my career choices.  I still make custom cards as a hobby, but needless to say, there wasn't enough time for that on Monday. 

After a quick run and take out for dinner, I impatiently waited to head off to the airport to pick up Adam from his latest NASCAR trip to Michigan.  (no comment on the NASCAR portion).  AND all that waiting and I was still late to pick him up, only by like 5 - 10 minutes aka he landed in Minneapolis when I left our apartment.  

We came home to a nice array of presents for him to open before wearily dragging himself off to bed.  My mom and I went in on a themed birthday present - Cheese making set from my family and a Northern Brewer home beer making set from me!  I'm still giving myself a pat on the back for the idea.  

Tuesday - Thanks to 365 Twin Cities I was able to get us movie passes to a free screening of Hit & Run.  A movie with Tom Arnold, Kristen Bell, and Bradley Cooper is a very entertaining cast, especially since Bradley Cooper has disgusting dreads.  The movie itself was horrible, but TOTALLY worth seeing for FREE!  The dialogue has hilarious one liners that won't necessary work in the whole big picture of the plot or lack of plot.  Dax Sheppard and Kristen Bell are SOOOO good together with really good comedic pros - it was really natural like witty banter you have with your friends loaded with sarcasm.  

Wednesday - Adam's official birthday.  We decided against going out to eat since we have had limited time to hang out together at our apartment this summer.  I took it upon myself to make a full week's worth of birthday dinner's.  Tuesday - per Adam's cravings last week we had sloppy joe's with tator tots, but today the dinner had-to-be amazing and delicious.  Since he's been on a kick about sweet corn lately, the idea for dinner started with corn bread.  Since my number one reference for all recipes is Bon Appetit, I went with their choice of Basil and Fresh Corn Cornbread.  Then I had an epiphany that I needed to embrace my LOVE of Southern Food.  This turned into: Fried Chicken, Mash potatoes and gravy, and corn bread.  For dessert - pictured above - pudding cake.  It is IMPOSSIBLE to cut pudding cake so it was more of a mystery cake since you weren't sure what was going to slop onto your plate.  The pudding cake wasn't exactly set when I served it.   The pudding cake consisted of:

Pecan crust
First Layer: Cream cheese with powder sugar and heavy cream
Second Layer: Vanilla Pudding
Third Layer: Chocolate Pudding
Top Layer: Cool Whip

All of the recipes can be found on my Pinterest page.  

DELICIOUS!!!!  The best part of the meal turned out to be the gravy - total surprise that I pulled out of my butt hat.  Now after dinner - we ate too much - we rolled ourselves onto the couch to watch Paul - another terrible movie that turned out to be quite entertaining.  

All in all I think I pulled off an excellent 3 day birthday extravaganza!  I'm quite proud of myself, but now tonight I have to clean up all the dishes (not so fun).  

Party---Party----Party!!!

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for celebrating the weekend with me celebrating my birthday!!!!   This weekend was so much fun, and I know everyone put in a lot of effort to make it happen.


I took the day off Friday to take some leisurely time for myself.  It was a great treat! Katie and I stopped by the Home Sweet Home Food Truck for lunch at the Capital Building.  We both ordered their fish tacos; it was a light lunch packed with a ton of flavor!  Their dressing with lime juice and white balsamic vinegar was sweet and savory - delicious!!! 


Friday night we stopped by a "townie/biker bar" as Katie put it - Tavern on Avenue.  GREAT FISH FRY - oily, greasy, and loads of mayonnaise in their tartar sauce.  The perfect pre-Saturday day drinking meal.  Katie and Ryan went to a cooking class earlier in the week, so Katie taught us that if you put lemon on your deep fried fish it'll help to prevent that unsettling feeling in your stomach.  It make sense if you think about it - acid coating fat molecules (yes, I am a nerd).  We all enjoyed a few rounds of beer - I had the Summit Summer Ale that is DELICIOUS! (a kloshe style beer).  I learned on Saturday, Summit Brewery sold their last kegs last week, and the brewery is completely out.  Get it while it lasts I suppose... until, hopefully, next summer!



Saturday was when the real party started.  A group of 6 of us hit up the Highland Fest Beer Dabbler in Saint Paul.  It's a great festival with a large beer garden of 60 or so microbreweries to sample while enjoying the sunshine!!! Adam and I went together last year and had a great time, but it was so much fun this year to have a large group of people to loiter around the grounds with.  

It was such a fun group - a special thanks to Katie, Ryan, Pat, Courtney and Adam for hanging out on Saturday and for the friendly competition in a game of Hammer Slagen - It took a lot of concentration considering I have ZERO upper body strength.  

Adam came away victorious crushing the nail on his fourth turn.  It was a nail biting finish as Ryan has less than a millimeter to go from beating us all one round earlier!  All in all, it was a good showing of sportsmanship!! 

We finished off the night at dinner with Pat, Courtney, and Max at Psycho Susie's for pizza.  Courtney was able to capture the night in this rare but AWESOME picture of Adam and I.  Notice - no lazy eyes, both looking at the camera, both smiling and a tropical theme in the background---perfect!

On Sunday, Adam took over as master chef with a little help from Cupcake and Sweets Bakeshop for dessert.  We had a pretty lazy day considering I had to work, but I came home to the roaring flames of the grill, and the fragrant aroma of lamb chops and asparagus.  He really does know me all too well!!!

I am all too proud of my food photography.  Doesn't that look delicious - the meat was perfect and the asparagus was crisp and seasoned well.  For dessert: French macarons and four cupcakes from Cupcake -- I still have a few (3) cupcakes left.  

Thank you so much for a great weekend to everyone!!! 

P.S. Remember the scarf I blogged out last Thursday.  Courtney and Pat surprised me with it for my birthday - THANK YOU! I can't wait to wear it!