Birthday Cake

I must say, I think I had one of the best birthday cakes ever (okay, maybe runner-up to the Pac-Man cake I had once in elementary school...). My birthday was last Friday. DH surprised me and my birthday crew with fabulous cake from Brazilian Bakery. BB is a local place, just across the street from our neighborhood Publix. They have very tasty fried meat pies and pastries, and also very yummy desserts, which we have only made a small dent in the long counter-full of goodies. This cake was layers of yellow cake with an inner layer of a delicious cream filling, whipped cream icing, meringue crunchies on the sides, and strawberries on top. Moist, tasty, and to quote my friend Tim, "stupid." (As in, that's stupid good!) YUM! Thanks, Honey!

Kicking off the Holiday Season

DH and I attended Red and Green Scene last night at Mason Murer Fine Art Gallery, the AIA Atlanta holiday party which was in partnership with USGBC, ASID, IIDA, and ASHRAE Atlanta this year. When I bought tickets about a week ago, there were about 400+ people attending. At the party last night, I heard there were over 700! We had a great time visiting with professionals, friends, vendors, acquaintances, and even met a few new folks. The food was pretty good, although probably a little overly elaborate for heavy hors d' oeuvres (but hey, I feel I got my money's worth), and the lines for food and drinks seemed to be pretty long at times, but hey, they were serving a *bunch* of people. In light of the fact that my office, and probably many others out there, decided to conserve and not host fancy holiday parties for their employees and/or clients this year, we enjoyed our one "fancy" party of the year. Entertainment by the band, Kingsized, along with Two Dames Aflame Burlesque Troupe was great as well as fun! There was a party photographer as well as other friends with cameras at the event, so hopefully I'll have some better ones of me and David soon. That's us with our friend Vanessa above, who is a rep for a flooring company. I hope that all of you out there have a fun, safe, and memorable holiday season this year!

A special HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dear little sister, Lena, today! Love you!

Birthday fun

David's birthday "burgers"

Blowing out the candles
Big bite!

We had a nice, small gathering to celebrate DH's birthday last night. We met up for dinner at FIGO Pasta in Virginia-Highland, then headed over to GT for Flicks on 5th, a series of movies being shown outside on 5th Street at Technology Square over the summer. Last night featured Slumdog Millionaire, which some of us had already seen. There were a couple of skips in the viewing, so those who saw it for the first time should definitely rent it and watch it again sometime. It was a little on the warm side, but not too bad. My birthday "burgers" turned out really cute, but really too much sweetness. Next time, I'll try making them with the mini muffin pan and smaller rounds of brownies so that they are more bite-sized and less sugar! Looking forward to spending some time this evening with our new TV and getting the DVD player hooked up so we can check out how a movie looks on it!

Another year older and wiser

I had a great, not too eventful birthday, but thoroughly enjoyed it. Work went by pretty quickly. DH and I headed out for birthday dinner at Baraonda (link down on the right in my "Fave Eats" list). We shared the calamari appetizer, the Proscuitto di Parma pizza (best pizza EVER!), and of course, my free birthday dessert, tiramisu! Now I have had tiramisu many a time, and do have particulars about a good tiramisu (like, cream cheese is NOT a substitute for mascarpone!), but the one we had last night was one of the best, truly sublime pieces I have ever tasted.

After dinner, we headed over to Midtown Art Cinema to catch a special screening of Road to Roubaix, a documentary of the famous Paris-Roubaix, cobblestone-ridden, bike race in France each April. It was very interesting (certainly not something I would *ever* want to attempt!), and I can't believe the stamina of these riders that take on the race!

Speaking of sublime, we finally stopped by "the doughnut place" that several people have been telling me about this morning to grab some breakfast. Sublime Doughnuts is located at the corner of 10th and Hemphill, where the old West Campus Bookstore used to be by Tech. See that strawberries and creme doughnut pictured on the website - THAT'S what I had for breakfast this morning. Go try it - 'nuff said. Happy Friday!

Happy B-Day, D-vid!

We had a great time at Dave & Buster's last night celebrating David's birthday. Friends Cyndi, Rachel, Steph and Muddy were on hand to join in the festivities. We all had dinner then hit the Midway for some fun and games. Passing through the Winner's Circle, we noticed that you could get Wii games for 7900 points. Well, we already had over 6000 saved up on my Power Card from a few years back when we tried to get the enormous pirate Kermit the Frog for Cyndi, but alas it was gone before we could win it. So, our efforts for the night ended up getting us The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess! Happy Birthday, Honey!

C'est mon bon anniversaire!

I had a very nice birthday, with very nice birthday wishes from a lot of people. Thanks to everybody for the well-wishes!

I had lunch at Figo with my friends Joanne and Susan. Then yummy dinner at Simpatico with DH, Steph, Chris and Cyndi. Then my free scoop of birthday ice cream at Baskin-Robbins, and 31-cent ice cream for everyone else. That's me with DH after getting home with dinner, sporting my cute bunny charm necklace that Cyndi made me. (Thanks, Cyndi!) And the photo was taken using my new fancy schmancy tripod that can turn into a monopod. Thanks, Honey! :) Now I just need that fancy schmancy camera...

Waiting for the storm to hit me at work - another trek through another tough project deadline forecasted ahead...

Figaro

I had a great time at the opera tonight! It was my second time in Cobb Energy Center, DH's first. DH found it relaxing, which is good in his book. We had pretty good seats, and were excited to see both our acquaintance through WF@GT, Craig, and his wife Rebecca in the performance. Craig in the pit of course, and Rebecca making her debut with the AO.

Here we are during the first intermission, "chillaxing" in the lobby, and a view from our seats. More fun tomorrow - time for bed!