Sunday, June 10, 2012

Birthday Weekend Festivities

 

I have beautifully NORMAL chromosomes!!!!

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Anyways, now that I have that great piece of news out of my system, sorry I’ve been away for so long!  I’ve been busy with patients and birthday celebrations.  Jack and I started off with a nice Friday dinner of a homemade pizza with veggies, TVP, and Hispanic blend cheese.  The dough was straight from the freezer thanks to a double batch from The Joy Of Cooking which I portioned and saved for later.

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Deliciousness in my tummy.  Next up we dug into the wonderful cheesecake brownie birthday “cake” that Jack made me for my special day (on Monday so hey, we were a few days early).  We thought it needed some ice cream so we walked ourselves down to the local Marsh and got some cappuccino chip.  I can’t even explain how delicious it was.  Sooooooo good.

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The yogurt blend ice cream put it over the top really.  I must say though, I am incredibly proud of Jack.  His effort made it all the tastier, I’m sure.  As much as I wanted another piece, I forewent one because we headed out with our dancing shoes on.

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It had been probably a few months since we last danced so we were well overdue.  Sadly, it wasn’t the best night at our normal spot: too many over-zealous high schoolers and not enough of our typical swing-dancer friends.  We stuck it out for a while and had some nice lindy numbers but then we bailed in favor of a party one of my co-workers was throwing.  Ending the night that way was the best thing we could have done.  Saved the night.

The next morning, after Insanity kicked out collective butts, we made vanilla protein pancakes to refuel.  I topped mine with strawberries, blueberries, chia, flax, and syrup.  Perfection on a plate.

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After some closet digging, some napping, some reading, and some more closet digging I headed to a wedding reception for one of the full-time techs in my lab.  They got married close to a month and a half ago in Jamaica and wanted to have a state-side party for those who couldn’t be there on the island to celebrate the actual day.  I was starving by the time I arrived (and I was late because my GPS decided to be awful at directions) so I sampled a bite or two of all their choices: bbq meatballs, chicken spring rolls, tortelloni salad, caprese skewer, fruit skewer, and shrimp with cocktail sauce.

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Everything was tasty and predominantly homemade.  Sadly, because I was late getting there I literally had to skip out after having my nibbles.  Despite being able to only stay a short time, I was pleased to get to make an appearance, show my support, and be part of the celebration.  On my way back through my hometown I picked up Jack and we headed to our birthday party at Dave & Busters!

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Jack had never been and since we have birthdays so close together we thought a fun night of food, drinks, and games would be the best way to celebrate.  We arrived and got drinks at the bar while we waited for everyone to arrive.  I tried the Shizzle made with vanilla vodka and two kinds of pineapple juice.  It was on special so I figured why not?

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Wasn’t too bad and it kept me occupied until we sat down for dinner with everybody.  Jack and I started off with pretzel bites accompanied by Dijon mustard, honey mustard, and cheese sauce.  Mmmm, just what I wanted and not over salted or under seasoned.

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I could have eaten the whole basket myself and honestly, I probably had the majority of the bites.  They were to good to keep my fingers off them!  Shortly after we finished the first course, dinner was served.  I had opened the menu and saw the macaroni and cheese with chicken and bacon and I was done lookin’.

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Every forkful was scrumptious and it fueled my gaming sufficiently.  Jack and I split a card with 170 some odd credits (the average game runs about 5 credits) and we tackled all sorts of games.  Christina and I played a game that was a bit like Whack-A-Mole but upright, way bigger, and all sorts of epileptic.

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I won but just barely.  I think I heard the beeping for the next 15 minutes though, haha.  The boys played air hockey a bunch and I probably played it three or seven times.  It was simple but oddly satisfying.

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Some four-player Pac Man was also played along with Deal or No Deal.  Pretty sure we tried a million strategies to pick out our cases and such but none seemed to hold a whole heck of a lot of water.

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Toward the end Christina had to head out so she used up her tickets and got me a sudoku rubix cube.

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And then Matt and Ashley headed out because they’re “old people” by their own admission and bed was calling.  They’re nesting in their new house right now so I don’t blame them!

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As we drew later into the night, the big winner of the night, Ian, cashed out and got me a pink monster thing as a birthday gift.  Too cute.  Now I just need to figure out what to name her…

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(Sorry for the blurry picture!)  Finally, once we had pretty much spent all our credits, we headed to a bar for some late night drinks and craziness.  I sipped a dark beer while Jack had a margarita.  The funniest part, however, was toward the very end of the night when Jack’s friends bought him two Patron shots and they urged him to do the salt lick off my neck.  I don’t think I have giggled so hard in a long time.  All in all though, we had a great time from beginning to end.

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This morning we woke up nice and late because we didn’t get to bed until two in the morning.  By the time we opened our eyes it was lunch time.  I made up some quick tuna salad for wraps and we had greens on the side.

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With food in our bellies, and the knowledge that today was a rest day from Insanity thank Heavens, we decided to spend the day out shopping.  The first stop was the mall to get my beautiful Bulova watch fitted.  Jack got it for me for my birthday (in addition to a sweet heart rate monitor so I can track my burn during my workouts!) but it was wayyyyy too big for my wrist.  Thankfully, with the removal of SEVEN links the beauty fit like a charm.

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It’s my first big girl watch and I love it.  Afterwards, we meandered around the mall hitting up the Lego store for kicks.  What a place that was.  We also ended up buying some new shoes for Jack so he doesn’t have just sneakers as an option.  He bought some dark gray Vans and I fell in love with some cute boots that were just a smidgen too small for me so I didn’t go home with them.  Maybe I’ll find them somewhere else…

We also crashed our senses of smell in the Yankee Candle store.  My off-the-wall favorite?  Man-Town!  Believe it or not, it is a “man candle”.  The other scents were things like freshly cut grass and first down dirt but this one, whew, it smelled like the greatest cologne ever.  If you burned that in your apartment, it would be like having the most well groomed boy living with you.

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Second favorite?  Carrot cake.  Nomnom.  Sadly, I’m sure burning this would make me gain weight just by smelling it.

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When we finally got back to the apartment after having a lovely consignment shop run post leaving the mall, we were pretty hungry.  BRU, our favorite, came to mind and we walked a few blocks down the street and sat on the patio.  To our delight, they had changed their menu, or rather refined it and added some new dishes.  I was instantly sold on my dinner before I even began to think about appetizers.  But, to go in order, we had the chili cheese fries to start.

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Seriously, I need the recipe to this chili.  Pretty sure I said that the first time and I STILL MEAN IT!  Unreal flavor.  We took our time and eventually finished off the whole plate, I swear I didn’t lick it, before our burgers arrived.  I tried the brand new one on their menu and boy it didn’t disappoint.

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Holy smokes.  Yes, please, more, thank you.  Wow!  Now, I know what you’re thinking.  Why do you have one onion ring??  Because they’re made to order and the rest followed shortly.  I didn’t mind.  That meant they were hot and extremely fresh.  Nomnom.  As we enjoyed our food and the late afternoon, early evening, sunshine I sipped a pear cosmo (because last time’s was perfect) and then I tried a “dark and stormy” which was basically ginger beer and rum with a lime.

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I really liked it and it was a great way to close out the meal.  Jack finished his locally brewed beer and we walked back to the apartment.  He prompted passed out for a nap and I perused Pinterest.  I was pleasantly surprised to find an adorably perfect pin:

Talk about speaking straight to the heart of me.  Seriously, the girls in my lab and myself really have been so taken with the Fifty Shades trilogy that this is totally 100% us.  Emotional trauma for sure but in the best, most delicious, most intriguing, most addicting way.  Speaking of, don’t hate me, but I’m going to go and read more.  I’m all set to finish the second book tonight.  Yay!!!

 

P.S. Tomorrow is my birthday!!


Questions:
What is your favorite kind of birthday cake?
Ever experienced “emotional trauma” thanks to a paperback?

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