While they kept the girls Friday night, Ryan and I went to dinner at The Georgian Club. We recently became members here and were looking forward to our first official function. The experience definitely set the bar high! We were greeted and immediately taken to one of the smaller, more intimate dining rooms. There was a piano player in there playing beautiful music, and we had the room to ourselves until a group of 8 came in about 30 minutes into our meal. When we opened our menus, the middle section said "We would like to wish you a happy 31st birthday" which I thought was cool. They started our meal out with a shrimp on cucumber appetizer, and then brought out the appetizers we ordered. I had the lobster bisque which was fantastic; the best I have ever had. Ryan had three fried goat cheese croquettes with a blueberry compote...seriously, can you think of anything Ryan would like better? Of course, they brought out delicious breads, and we both enjoyed our glasses of wine with this too. Then they gave us the lemon sorbet to cleanse our palates. Our entrees came next. I had a wonderful chicken parmigiana over stuffed cheese shells while Ryan had a NY strip sirloin with potatoes and vegetables. It was wonderful, but the portions were huge; neither of us ate more than half our entree. We were so stuffed that we passed on dessert, but they brought out their signature dessert (on the house, just like Ryan's steak since it was his birthday) which is a praline basket with ice cream and berries - yum! The plate had "Happy Birthday" written in chocolate around it which was cute. It was a wonderful dinner, and we are looking forward to returning soon. After dinner, we went to my parents house and watched the movie Gran Torino that we have had from Netflix for a couple of months now; it was interesting but not exactly what we were expecting.
On Saturday, Ryan's birthday, he actually started the day at a funeral. The older brother of a friend of ours unexpectedly passed away on Thursday. Ryan wanted to go to the funeral to support our friend as he grieves this loss. Ryan said this was one of the most difficult funerals he has attended because the young man (he was 32) had two young girls; our prayers are certainly with his family as they mourn his passing. I stayed with the girls because we thought his family was going to go downtown for ESPN's Game Day which was in town for the Alabama game that evening; I actually took the girls to visit Meme for over an hour which was nice. When he got home from the funeral, he changed clothes and immediately went to see our former nanny, Kim, who is also a massage therapist. Unfortunately he wasn't going for a massage. He has been having a lot of problems with his ears and fluid backing up in them; it was making it where he could not hear in his left ear. Kim does this process called candling which is basically burning a candle in your ear, but it takes the fluid out; I don't fully understand how it works but the important thing is, it does work. Ryan felt so much better after seeing her.
When he got home from Kim's, his family had all gone downtown. We put the girls down for the naps, and he started to relax to college football. Yea! I cleaned up a little before our friends, the Casey's, came over. Kim and Slade brought some yummy chocolate chip cookies, and we had a great time hanging out with them and their two older kids, Alex and Jack, while Avery (16 months) had a blast with our toys; their newborn, Savannah, was quite content too. Lily woke up from her nap and took a little while to warm up, but then did great with them. They stayed until just after 5 which is when we packed the girls up and went to meet our friends, the Lundquists, at Taco Mac. We always have a great time with Charlie, Lisa and Charlotte. It was a lot of fun to watch the end of the Georgia game on the big screens there. As we were leaving, Lisa gave Ryan a pan of what we loving call "crack brownies." These are Ghiridelli dark chocolate brownies with homemade vanilla icing spread thick on top and the crushed Oreos sprinkled across that...oh my goodness, you just don't know how good these are until you try them.
We got home right as the Birmingham family got home too, so then we sang happy birthday and had birthday cake. I had picked up the cake from Publix the day before. I was holding both of the girls when Lily wanted to see it. As I was holding her near it, she decided to pick it up and tilt it towards her to see it better. Of course, the cake fell forward, thankfully into the container; I couldn't do anything to stop her because Mia was in my other arm. I was just about to freak out (I wanted Ryan to have a perfect cake) and Lily started to look upset that she had upset me when Liz said "Oh look, the cake's fine, you decorated the window!" That quickly reminded me this was just a minor little accident that didn't make a difference so I started laughing. Lily quickly started laughing too and became excited that she had decorated the window. She reminded me of this when we started to sing to Ryan; the cake was delicious by the way. Lily loved the cake. Keep in mind, she rarely eats or drinks sugary things, so a very small piece of cake went a long way with her. Then our friends, Doug and Julia, came over to watch the Alabama game with us. We all agreed we have never seen Lily so hyper. She was literally running in circles, singing, spinning and laughing. It was pretty funny to see. Finally, about 9:15, I told her it was time for bed (we usually put her to bed about 8:30/8:45). She crashed into bed and we didn't hear a peep from her again.
Sunday morning we enjoyed hanging out with Ryan's family here at the house. After Mia's morning nap, we all went to Mellow Mushroom for lunch which was lots of fun. For some reason, Lily started thinking about Halloween while we were there. She thought of a costume for each person. She went around the table and would say "What should (fill in name here) be for Halloween?" She would have a really thoughtful look on her face, and put her finger against her cheek; it made me think of the "The Thinker" and it was adorable. She decided Ryan should be a snake, Mia and I should both be penguins, Josh should be an angel, Kendall should be a moose, Amy should be a duck and Bama should be a dolphin. We came back home after lunch, put the girls to bed and told everyone goodbye. You can see some of the pictures with the family below.
The four of us after dinner with the Lundquists.
Ryan's birthday cake; you can see a little of the "decorated window" on the left.
After the girls woke up from their naps, we met our friends, the Bernats, at Jim and Nicks for dinner. Jeff, Kristin and Britton are lots of fun to hang out with, and we were glad they came back over to our house after dinner to catch up a little more and share some dessert. We are very lucky to have so many great friends. It was wonderful to spend so much of Ryan's birthday weekend with them!
After the Bernats left, Lily wanted to lay down with Ryan on the couch for a few minutes before getting ready for bed. You can see in the picture below that they both love this. Really, could Ryan have received any better gift?
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