It's my birthday. I'll eat and bake if I want to!

I had a little birthday celebration last week. On my actual birthday Bubs took me out to Alexander's Steakhouse for dinner. It was fine dining at it's best. There was hamachi shooters, foie gras, lobster mac and cheese, artisan bread, porterhouse steaks, complimentary birthday champagne and a chocolate torte, and a different dessert for each of us. Whew! I'm sure I'm missing something....OH YEAH...mini chocolate chip cookies and cotton candy that tastes a bit lime-citrusy that was also complimentary. I haven't had a dinner like that in quite awhile.

The service was impeccable. You know you're fine dining when your server pulls out the bread crumb duster and removes all the mess you've made on the table between each course. Also, your napkin is replaced with a new folded one within seconds everytime you leave the table. It was like magic.

The next day was spent with an old friend and we went to a Thai crepe restaurant for lunch. Yes, THAI CREPES. It was different and it was good. We shared a beef curry crepe and a crab pad thai noodles, both tasty. For dinner my folks made dinner, my filipino favorites....sparerib adobo, pancit, and leche flan. All deeeelicious!

Sunday dinner was spent with Bubs family to celebrate his aunt's birthday as well. I was given the task of bringing dessert. I asked his sister for any ideas and not suprisingly, the chocoholic that she is recommended chocolate of some kind. Eh. I haven't been in a chocolate mood...so no, and it's not her birthday. Then I remembered coming across a really easy and delicious apple dumpling recipe I've been wanting to try. SOOO easy and so good I made some more for myself last night! I warned his sister I'd be making dessert instead of picking up something at the grocery and she replied back "uh oh, I'll try to have a back up plan". Whatever. Anyway, I ended up making that and a blueberry cobbler just in case people didn't care for the dumplings. I spent my entire Sunday morning baking for hours but knew it would be worth it. We brought vanilla bean ice cream to have on the side as well.

As usual, my iPhone cam doesn't do the food justice. Trust me, the dumplings were incredible.(Forgot to take pics of the blueberry cobbler...but trust me, it was equally as gobblicious.)

When we arrived for dinner I found out that his sister asked his aunt to bring a red velvet cake. WTF?!? I was super irritated. Why the hell was I asked to bring dessert when it's already being taken care of? *groan* My baking wasn't going to be up to snuff for her? In the end, my desserts were all gobbled up by everyone with lots of compliments and the stupid store bought red velvet shithole of a cake was barely touched. HA!! Psh, not to mention that my homemade red velvet cupcakes can run circles for hours around that dump of a cake.

My friend told me that a Coach outlet opened up at the mall near my parent's house. How did I not know this?! I guess I've been avoiding shopping of any kind lately to save some dough. I used to go to that mall at least once a week before I moved out of the area. After parting ways with my friend for lunch I immediately made a bee line to the mall to blow my birthday money on Coach items. I wasn't bad. I can finally retire my old Coach sunglasses that I've been solely using the past 3-4 years. I replaced with them with these new sunglasses.

Notice that the the left lens (your right) is much darker than the other? Yeah, had to go back the next day to exchange them for a pair that didn't make me feel like I was in 3D land. It was majorly fucking with my eyesight. I ended up getting a price adjustment (YAY!) because they were having an extra 20% off everything. If there was another pair of glasses that I liked I would've bought another one. My tip to ya'll is to NEVER go to a Coach outlet in the middle of a Saturday, especially when there's a big sale going on like that. I was standing in line for 30 minutes just to exchange my glasses. I would've looked around more but Bubs was waiting for me and he was already stressed by stupid drivers in the parking lot.

That was pretty much it. I had other plans in mind but didn't follow through. Going to Stinson Beach will have to wait for another weekend.