Birthday Thanks!

This is my last birthday post, I promise! I just wanted to send some thanks...

To my hubby, for the time you sacrificed and for the thought you put into celebrating with me and just your overall enthusiasm and love.

Mama, for thinking about me so much and for your generousity in your gifts as well as many things that you've done for me.

To Chris, Chrissie & Mom...thank you so much for the DVD! Can't wait to watch it!

To all my other friends and family who took time out of your busy days to email or call to greet me!

Last but not least, to my sister Jean, who's so thoughtful and sent me the cutest stuff in the mail as well as a book! I'm not one to toot my own horn but I did appreciate the descriptive post she put on her blog for my birthday.

Thanks so much from this worrisome, fastidious, French-speaking/German engineering/human calculating/dog whispering baby sister!

Let them eat cupcake!

My husband was generous enough to extend my birthday to two days! He reasearched and made enough calls to track down the book we looked for on my birthday. He found it at the Barnes and Nobles in Burbank, which conveniently is located nearby a cupcake place we frequent when we are able to....Yummy Cupcakes...and that's the name of the place, not an enthusiastic description of how they taste!

Happy Birthday to me!

Wednesday morning, after I spoke to my sister about my plans to celebrate, she enthusiastically reminded me to bring a camera. Normally I'm not the avid picture taker at events, but this time I realized..."Great idea! Pictures for my blog!" So, my hubby and I spent most of the day reading aloud together...well actually I do all the reading, but I've found that this is something I really enjoy doing! Anyhow, this was followed by our in town search of a book I've been wanting, Marie Antoinette The Journey. We were unsuccessful...so there was nothing picture worthy for most of the day. We decided later in the day to go to one of our favorite fine dining restaurants Maru Sushi. This place is not your typical Sushi establishment. The have a market fresh menu, execute french cooking techniques and make their own ice cream.

We were eager for the food to arrive since we knew how well presented it always is. As we waited hungrily for our food we took the time to remind each other to not eat the food until after we took photos. Unfortunately, despite the reminders we still completely forgot. We immediaetly ruined the appearance of our delicious dishes...Petit Filet with Soy-Espresso Sauce on top of Parsnip Puree and Snap Peas, as well as Seared Divers' Scallop over Creamy Risotto with oven roasted Heirloom Tomatoes, finished with a warm verjus-olive vinaigrette. Hopefully these descriptions convey how exquiste the food was, since the half eaten photos would not have done them justice.

We hoped to have better luck with dessert, reminding ourselves again and even placing the camera in the middlle of the table. Amazingly enough, we made the same mistake again! We did have slightly better luck though in modifying our mistake enough to take a photo of one of the desserts:


We were able to turn the plate a little to hide where we began eating it. The other dessert, bread pudding cooked in a ramekin so that it was both crunchy AND soft, and also topped with ice cream, was not so lucky. In my defense, I'm very new to the blogging world and it has not become routine for me to document everything!

Anyhow, the meal was a nice end to my day! And I hope I'll get better soon at this whole blogging thing!