birfday!

oh, bloggy, so many great things have been happening, but we've been so busy, and i 've been on a plane every week so far this month. so for now, no more pictures of kitchen experiments (but oh how delicious the boozy homemade maraschino cherries were!)

my birthday was saturday and it was a full weekend of celebrations. i flew back to pdx on friday night and gricklepants and i decided to have date night and go out to dinner. we went to farm, a place many people have raved about and so it was time for us to try it out ourselves. in a word: deelish. in two: deelishous.

we shared an appetizer of figs stuffed with gorgonzola and drizzled with honey and balsamic vinegar. it was phenomenal. i ordered the gnocchi with a fire-roastd red pepper sauce and gricklepants got the halibut off the specials menu. the halibut was the bomb-diggity. the gnocchi were a little heavy, but the sauce was supreme. we ended the meal with a slice of marscapone cheesecake topped with a blueberry sauce and it was so light and fabulous.

saturday morning meant a trip to the dmv since my license expired. having some previous experience with the dmv on a saturday we decided to awake painfully early. it wasn't awful, but it wasn't exactly fun either. and nobody wished me a happy birthday. i wouldn't have expected it but at the airport all of the security people wished me a happy birthday (i guess they actually do carefully read over your license!)

we got out of the dmv around 9am so went for breakfast. i wanted to go to le pigeon since it's rumored they have the best eggs benedict. sadly, i will never know because they are no longer open for breakfast. the doug fir was a tasty backup. then we went shopping! gricklepants gave me his wallet and left me at mabel & zora, my favorite shoppy store for girl clothes. i was pretty good and didn't go too overboard. oh! and at some point in here i opened up my present from gricklepants: a whole new set of pots 'n pans! i am super stoked.

after a nap we met up with jeremy, vera, jonathan, and arlie at thatch, a tiki bar i had read about. there was a tiki crawl going on so the place was full of people in bright outfits. it was fun. we were tucked away in the back in the tiki "hut." the drinks were good 'n strong and the food was surprisingly good (though, i can only really compare this tiki bar to the alibi, which is decidedly not known for its food.)

it was an awesome day! can it be my birthday everyday? please?