Sterling's Birthday!!!

Sterling and I have had zero alone time since we got back from Utah. And so a date was definitely needed. We decided to eat right on Atlantic Ave in downtown Delray Beach, which is the CUTEST place in the entire world and makes me love where we live so much. We ate right off the beach and saw some beautiful sunset while we walked over.

For our appetizer we had truffle fries with gorgonzola fondue. It was the most amazing thing I have ever tasted in my life. Why can't EVERYWHERE have potato wedges that taste that amazing? I told Sterling we have to go back before we move just for an appetizer!

The beach is right behind that.

Our mahi-mahi on tomato. Pretty good.

In Miami the beaches had curfews (I know, because a policeman kicked my niece and I off the beach once, oops. He also asked if we had the Utah license plate minivan and kindly recommended we take our gps off the dash. Gosh we were florida newbies back then!) So I timidly asked a security guard if we could walk along the beach after dark--in a huge calypso Jamaican accent he said "why sure honey! go have some fun! just be careful!" It was hilarious. And we ate some icecream in the pitch black on the beach and it felt amazing. Kind of like sitting at the top of a quiet mountain. Or on a roof in the darkness. I wanted to stay forever. Definitely some much needed alone time without kids.

Making the coconut cake! They were awesome helpers! Coconut cake has to be made the night before to give the coconut milk and sweet and condensed milk time to soak into the cake holes that you punch.

The next night. Happy Birthday! 31!!!!! Can't believe we're starting in our 30s (this means I turn thirty in a few months, ah!) but it is the absolute best!

He got a meat thermometer for the grill and a little tiny drill from Ikea that will hopefully be useful with putting up bunkbeds, baby gates, all the little things we normally want a tiny drill for and don't have one. He also got a new computer a week ago....so merry christmas!!

The kids were so excited for his birthday! They each wrote their names on the card, Molly was the funniest she wrote MOY very carefully then said "Doy! I forgot!" so we carefully stuck two little "L's" in there. They wanted green wrapping paper (thank you christmas leftovers) and even wore green that day after pow-wowing in their bedrooms because it is daddy's favorite color.

It just so happened that the IM team he's been working with for the last 12 weeks over the long summer stretch we were gone and that he just finished up with invited him to dinner. So it was the attending doctor, some third years, and several residents. They invited wives, which I feel like they never do, and Sterling loves IM and loves this team, so we splurged and went out on Tuesday night which was his actual birthday. It was this CRAZY place where they gave you your broth and you had your own little stove for it, and then things went by on a magnetic conveyor belt and you'd just grab them to put into your soup. Everything from fish eyes and clams and half of a crab, to wontons and mushrooms and all sorts of veggies and noodles. I asked what kind of cuisine this was and they said Chinese, but mostly Shanghai. They said this is what they eat in Shanghai. So there you go. There were also tons of hot sauces, so Sterling was in heaven. And they had all sorts of icecream. We liked that it had several things off of one of our favorite games, Sushi Go!, like green tea icecream, miso soup, oh man I can't remember now but every time we heard one we'd grin at each other. It was really, really fun to be around all the people I've heard about for three months. They were a really great group that Sterling really enjoyed and it was a really fun evening. And that's pretty much our date night quota for the next three months, so at least we had fun!