blake's surprise birthday weekend!

blakey is turning 27 on tuesday!  we had an entire surprise birthday weekend to celebrate.  (as you will quickly learn, if you do not already know, i really like birthdays.  i also really like surprises.)

when blakey got home from work on friday, i surprised him with his birthday cake!  an OU brownie cake.  & not just any brownie, ghiradelli dark chocolate brownies with chocolate chips.  yummm.  (thanks, tati!) & super cute too!

note: this brownie mix will no longer be allowed in my house.  

i, myself, ate at least half of the cake this weekend.

then we had a little fun with the tanky at the dog park, where he got to play with his puppy friends!

the t man finally likes water!  so proud of him.

for blakey's birthday present from my dad, we got to go out to a fabulous seafood restaurant for dinner - ocean.  we had fun cocktails, oysters on the half shell, gulf coast crab cakes, amazing seafood (nori crusted tuna & wasabi mashed potatoes for me & wood-grilled salmon & mashed potatoes for blakey), & peach birthday cake with ice cream!  great atmosphere & even better food.

  

after a little (super unhealthy & delicious) breakfast at bojangles', blakey's BIG SURPRISE arrived - justin & peyton flew in from winston-salem to celebrate with us for the weekend!  with 30 hours to party, we did it up birmy style.  

first up, lunch on the patio at rojo - a latin restaurant in the highlands.  although birmy has nothing delicious in the form of tex mex, this place fills our mexican fix.  (actually, the tex mex part is not entirely true.  you know chuy's on campus in austin [& other places]?  they just opened HERE!  but i have a strict > 1-month waiting rule on restaurants.)

then we all headed over to the winery at pepper place for a wine tasting.  the viognier was quite tasty.

we showed p & j around the UAB campus, including where blakey spends all of his days.  they got to see a bit of downtown birmy, in all of its glory.  & then we went to our loft to hang out in the urban-ness of it all.

later that evening, we had one of the best meals we've eaten in birmy so far.  jinsei sushi.  huge yummm. when you get a chance to go here, you must try the cucumber mojito & the tempura green beans.  amazing!

note: it was raining on our run in from the car.  please excuse the hair.

after the super fun saturday, we had more of a chill sunday.  a huge brunch at another broken egg.  watched our norman north soccer buddy play a little soccer with the celtics.  found out a friend had her baby.  peyton might have taken a bit of a nap.

this was a fabulous weekend!  one of the best to date in birmy.  happy birthday weekend to blakey & thank you for coming to justin & peyton!! 

love love,

kjp.