Happy Birthdays!

(yes, i know....its been a while...)

Chad is another year older as of the 15th. He's gettin old! :) Tuesday night the two of us went out to celebrate together. We went to this Italian restaurant called Bellini's that we had passed several times but had never been to yet. We walked in and it is this little, intimate (and exactly how I want my kitchen decorated) place. We were escorted to our table, handed the menus, and started deciding on what to get. We ended up splitting an appetizer of gnocchi. It had a brown butter sauce with a little parmesan cheese on top of it and some kind of leaf that was cooked along with it. It - was- EXCELLENT. Different from a lot of the gnocchi I usually have so it was very interesting. We finished the whole thing rather quickly :) We also split an entree of chicken alla vodka. It had this pasta that was a bigger, thicker version of fettuccine along with a tomato and cheese sauce. The chicken was wonderful and all the flavors were just perfect together. It was good to actually go out to eat! Ha!Wednesday was Chad's birthday. We both had to work so we didn't really get to do a whole lot that day but Thursday we went out with my parents to celebrate his birthday and Mom's birthday (next week the 22nd). We went to The Melting Pot and if you haven't gone, it is one of the coolest places I've eaten! It's a 'couples' place meaning that you order a certain combination of foods and it is for 2 people. The combination we all got included sun dried tomato chicken, lemoncello meat, italian seasoned pork tenderloin, fillet steaks, and spicy shrimp. We all had our own colored skewers and then the first course came out. It was the cheese course and it was quattro formaggio with all kinds of cheese in it. It came with breads, apples, and veggies. Now I was wondering what in the world apples were doing with cheese...let me tell you, that was the best thing out there. I LOVED it. Perfecto!

Second course were salads - we all ordered the caprese salad (tomato, mozzarella, and lettuce/spinach with balsamic vinegar). They were very good! Next course was the broth stage. They brought out the big pot of broth and we had all those meats and you would just skewer it, cook it for 1-2 minutes, and then eat it. They brought all types of sauces and stuff to put with it but just the meat by itself was phenomenal. That's when you get to sit around and chat while your meat is cookin! After that it was the CHOCOLATE COURSE!!!! Yeah, I was a little excited :) We got milk chocolate (they had different choices like smores, peanut butter, etc) and it came with strawberries, bananas, cake, brownies, and cheesecake! My favorite thing was the strawberries, of course. We got a few refills on those :)

So this past Wednesday was my Mom's birthday. We had been talking to her about taking her out to eat for it so we went to this cute little Italian place that was decent. We finished up and told her that we were all going to the airport to pick up a speaker that had spoken at our church before. Dad had called Mom earlier to tell her this and so she knew that and Chad and I told her we were coming too. We had to drive separate though so we could all fit..which we thought would give away the upcoming surprise. Luckily, my Mom is a little easy to fool ;) So we arrive at the airport and Mom and I went to the bathroom and Dad, Kevin, Kyle and Chad went to baggage claim. We came out, walked over to them, and hiding behind a huge sculpture was my Mom's sister! We waited for her to react....and waited....but she didn't even see her standing there! SO we finally got her to turn and the screaming and laughing followed. It was hilarious - AND Sandy got the whole thing on camera! Mom staring at her, a weird look on her face, and then realizing who it is, bursting into the giddy giggles. It was hilarious. Hopefully I'll get a copy of that video soon (HINT HINT!)
Sandy's visit was great! Its always a lot of fun when she visits. We played some games and did a lot of talking. We gave Mom some gifts and Sandy had created a quiz for all of us to take about Mom's adventures growing up and guess who won?? Yep, Mom did. Who'd-a-thought. I thought it was funny how I had heard almost all of the stories that were part of the quiz haha Oh mom....

That weekend our church was having a big yardsale to support our mission trip to Honduras this summer. Dad and I had planned a surprise party for my mom with some people from church for Friday night. She had absolutely no idea...again haha. We took her out to dinner at Logan's Roadhouse and then told her we had some stuff to bring up there to the church for the yardsale the next morning. There were going to be people there that night preparing for the yardsale, so when we pulled up and there were a bunch of cars outside, I don't think anything sparked suspicion. We walked in and Dad mentioned showing her the stuff in the back room....we walk down the hall...turn the corner into the room....Surprise! There were several people there and Dad and I had decorated the room the night before with "50's" stuff. We had an ice cream cake (Mint chocolate chip and chocolate cake), sat around and chatted, and then I presented Mom with another gift I had for her. Over the few weeks before I had rounded up friends and family, past and present, and had everyone write down why/what they love about my mom. Everyone had written back, and I had compiled all the messages into a little booklet and rolled it up with red ribbon in a scroll on fancy paper. I presented it with a yellow rose - and prepared for the tears! haha I love you mom!!

Now, since I'm so good at keeping up with this blog, I'm going to throw in random stories that I have forgotten to tell :)

-We have now experienced our first time of doing Taxes. (cue the awful music). We waited until the weekend before they were due (hm..) and then headed over to my parents house to get some help from them. We did the TurboTax online edition, which I must say is pretty amazing. It was so organized and easy! Thank you TurboTax for making our lives easier! So we sat down, proceeded to file through everything ( I had lost one sheet of W-2 from my last summer OF COURSE but then I figured it out), typed everything in, and then, saw our refund get higher and higher! Yep, for some reason, we turned out pretty good this year. Best year we've had yet :)

-I attended another baby shower this past weekend for one of my friends who is having twin boys! I saw the coolest gift there...she opened a very stylish necklace which, at first, seemed like a rather odd gift at a baby shower. THEN she read what it really was. A teething necklace. Yep - hanging on the string of the necklace was a round circle and it was a big teething ring. It also came with 2 bracelets you could let them slobber and chew all over. Genius idea, isn't it! I just thought that was the neatest thing.

NOTE: I did not re-read over this post because I finished the rest on my lunch break so I apologise for any misspellings, grammar, or punctuation errors :) I just needed to post ASAP so everyone knows we are ok!!

Mom and sandy's seeing each other at the airport. Are they sisters or what!

It went great :) HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

Oh my family. We're so normal....

This is part of the room so you can see the layout. There were black balloons all over the floor too!

PS: Happy Birthday to everyone else who has also had birthdays!!!!