Happy 30th Birthday to Aimee

"Time and tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of thirty."

- Robert Frost

Wise words indeed. This "fortune" was occupying a giant fortune cookie that arrived in the mail from Kristen N. We had a lovely time celebrating Aimee's 3-0 this year. Of course it started with our trip to Chicago and dinners/brunches with friends. The next indication that a birthday was among us was a visit to the Atlanta Cupcake Factory on Highland. I wanted to find a bakery that would make a banana cake and, striking out at Alon's, I decided to try the cupcake route. I found this place which specializes in red velvet with almond frosting and also, that's right, banana with brown sugar frosting.

Birthday Morning began with breakfast tacos featuring egg and potato with a hint of cumin and chili, topped pepperjack cheese in a corn tortilla. And some candle wax. Along with some thoughtful cards, a delivery of flowers from Aimee's parents arrived, adding a floral scent and more life to our home.

We'd been saving it for a special occasion and this was it: birthday dinner was at The Iberian Pig in Decatur. Wow -- what a great experience! We started out at the bar with a glass of red for Aimee and glass of white for me (both designated "Damn Good" by the menu)

and a portion of their drunken goat cheese which was possibly one of the best cheeses we'd ever had. The cheese was a semi-soft, made of goat's milk, aged 75 days and soaked in red wine for 72 hours. Shortly thereafter we were greeted in a surprise visit by Dr. Newman and Dr. Biousse, Aimee's fellowship directors. They introduced us to the chef and offered to pre-buy dessert for us. Once seated, we ordered the Arugula salad, Pork Cheek tacos, Esparragos con Moscatel, and then split the Spanish Lamb Ribs. The dessert selection were the house made churros with cinnamon-chili infused chocolate sauce.

The Iberian Pig facade in downtown Decatur

Flowers from Aimee's parents. She loved the colors!

The fortune cookie met its match.

New birthday outfit from my mom

The long anticipated visit home...

By popular request, Aimee is narrating this week's blog! As I'm sure most of you know, we made a much needed trip back to Chicago last weekend. (Crowley stayed at home with our friends Michael and Jeff from IHM!). Also, as some of you may or may not know, my 30th birthday is quickly approaching. We took advantage of our trip to spend some quality time with friends and family, and to celebrate my birthday!

Our trip began with a perfect flight from the world's busiest airport (ATL) to the world's second busiest airport (ORD, depends on how you count) that was not only on time, but EARLY! Which was perfect because we were definitely stretching on making a dinner reservation... unfortunately, AVIS had other plans for us. Their computers were "down" and it took a whole hour for us to get a car!! So we were a tad bit (40 mins) late for dinner, but luckily the staff at Veerasway was very accommodating! We had a wonderful dinner with the Neary's, Irena and Wes.

Our accommodations were provided by Mark B. We felt very "at home" there and certainly enjoyed watching the Notre Dame game there! He had a pretty nice view too...

The weather was amazing all weekend - certainly a nice case for how lovely fall in Chicago can be -- although I must say, the weather in Atlanta these last few weeks has been spectacular as well. I think I'm gaining a renewed (or just new actually) appreciation for fall.

Saturday we made a trip out to Lombard so I could get my driver's license renewed and then visited Megan at work and went back to our old 'hood. I was very excited to see that a Marshall's opened up in the Southgate Market at Canal and Roosevelt - very nice. After finally meeting our tenant and her new finance, lunch was enjoyed up in Wrigleyville with Kristen - had some excellent Mexican at El Jardin. My dad and sister visited and we enjoyed watching the Notre Dame football game (unlike today...grr).

Saturday night was an intimate get together at Café Ciao on Monroe. Great space, great food, and great wine was had by all.

Spontaneously and with no coercion from Mark, Megan made me some delicious and nutritious Rainbow Chip Cupcakes for my birthday. It is not truly a birthday without a little Rainbow Chips!!

In addition to birthday cupcakes, I also enjoyed a very delicious "Chocolate Wonton Sundae". I would be OK making that a birthday tradition as well! Thank you to Julie and the wonderful staff at Cafe Ciao for your hospitality - we had a lovely time!

One other tradition that we continued this year was that of the Birthday Brunch! This year's was at the trendy Branch 27 (continuing the para-tradition of brunch spots with numbers in their name, i.e. Cafe 28). They featured quite a few Southern dishes - which Mark and I could not resist... we're just embracing the Southern culinary arts while we can. It was delicious!

Our weekend was capped off by mass at Old St. Patrick's - just like old times. It was a very special visit and the perfect end to a perfect weekend. The last thing on our itinerary was a potluck dinner courtesy of the OSP 5pm choir. What a great time with great food and friends!! We made it to O'Hare just in time for our flight and had a terrific flight home!

Our trip was a breath of fresh air and it was great to see so many of our friends and family. We are already trying to plan our next trip. After 2 wonderful weekends, we are taking it easy this weekend and enjoying down time with Crowley!

Visit from Megan and Katie

We are so blessed to have had Aimee's sister and our dear friend Megan visit us in Atlanta. On the same weekend! We had a filling couple days of catching up, eating, praying, and of course commemorating the European re-awareness of America. Hard to believe it's been 518 years.

We started the weekend at Fat Matt's Rib Shack. Hey, if it's good enough for George Clooney's character in Up In The Air, it's good enough for me. We followed that up with some local beer selections at Neighbor's in Virginia Highlands.

Sunday brought another beautiful morning, a work out, and then mass at IHM where we used my new setting of Psalm 98 (see previous post for recording). Our friend Tommy from IHM was kind enough to host a dinner afterwards which gave us all an opportunity to get to know people better. Monday was a bit more relaxing and featured a creative lunch prepared by me and some freshly made pumpkin bread. Secret ingredient? Apple cider.

We also took Crowley for her obligatory trip to the dog park and took in some Fellini's Pizza. Here are some other pictures from the weekend:

As if this past weekend wasn't enough, we leave Friday for CHICAGO to celebrate Aimee's 30th birthday!! Stay tuned for that. We're so excited to see everyone and be with our friends from Old St. Pat's. Before we leave though, I need to do a quick shout out to Michael and Jeff for watching Crowley. We're so happy to know she'll be in good paws.

Happy Anniversary

In honor of our three year wedding anniversary, I am posting the semi-complete set of digital pictures from our photographer. There are a few samples below but check the Our Wedding album in Picasa for all!

Some random updates

Okay got a few various things to mention...

1. Aimee and I met up with Michael and Jeff for the Atlanta Greek Festival on Saturday. Different from our usual Greek experience because it was put on by the Greek Orthodox Church here in Atlanta. We were lucky enough to time it to coincide with a choir performance and an overview of the Eastern church. Made the gyros all the more tasty!
   
   
2. We were grocery shopping at Kroger at happened upon a box of Coffee Crisp! I've seen them before in the states but certainly not in a grocery store, and never this far south. The Coffee Crisp is a delightful chocolate bar, one of Aimee's favorites. "How do you like your coffee?"
   
   
3. It's been a while since I've written a psalm setting so I looked ahead to the next time Psalm 98 makes an appearance in the lectionary and saw that it was not the typical "All the ends of the Earth" refrain, so I took the opportunity to write a setting of it. Here is a very amateur recording of it we did in our apartment. I haven't quite gotten the acoustics down yet so the piano is too loud but we did get good vocal clarity. Please enjoy:
   
   Psalm 98: The Lords Comes to Rule the Earth With Justice
   
   
   We'll be using this setting at IHM next Sunday!
   
   
4. Serrano Peppers. When we were last at the DeKalb International Farmer's Market, I picked up some fresh Serrano peppers. Aimee has a different take on this (perhaps she'll voice that in a comment?) but I thought they would add a nice kick to a future mexican dinner. Turns out they are much hotter than jalapenos. While dicing them up, Aimee decided to take a bite and, finding them extremely hot, she ended up rubbing her face and eyes. A painful surge of piquance streamed its way through her eyes and tear ducts and, despite several hand washings, lingered on her fingers as a stinging reminder while putting on her contacts the following morning. Ouch! The culprits are below (before being thrown away):
   
   
5. In more successful culinary news, I decided to bake homemade bread this morning. I could not has been more pleased. A nice piece of toast will be waiting for me as soon as I'm done writing this post.
   
6. Last thing, our three year wedding anniversary is on Wednesday. Hard to believe we have three down already but it's absolutely the best. We are going to dinner at Wisteria in Inman Park to celebrate. To commemorate this events, I'll be posting a couple hundred pictures from our photographer from the wedding along with a link to our wedding website.