Zuke and Melissa: Birthdays and Park City

Ahh, the eternal age of 29. At least I'm not 30 yet, right Zuke? (wink, wink)

Since mine and Zuke's birthdays are only a month apart (to the day), we decided to do something a little different this year. We had been complaining that we never really had ever taken much time away, just the two of us, so we decided that instead of getting each other gifts this year, we would take a weekend up in Park City instead! We left on Friday the 16th, and it was really rainy. I kept worrying that it would put a damper on our weekend, but it didn't at all. I had gotten us a room at the Treasure Mountain Inn on Main Street, and it was gorgeous! It had been newly remodeled, and was like our own little studio apartment. We got changed and headed down to dinner at the Easy Street Grill. Ok....can I just say that the dinner we had there ranked up in my top 3 dinners EVER?? Oh my gosh....words cannot adequately describe the food we had! We share a perfectly cooked calamari appetizer, then Zuke had a beef minestrone soup, and I had a duck confit salad. I probably would have been completely fine stopping there, but we still had the entree and dessert. Zuke ordered the grilled trout on polenta, and I ordered the lobster mac 'n cheese. (Can you tell that we REALLY like food? LOL). I was seriously in culinary heaven! Everything was cooked perfectly...I had no complaints! We ordered the creme brulee for dessert, which just perfectly topped everything off. When we were done there, we made a quick stop at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, and by a Red Box to grab a movie before heading back to our hotel. The next morning, we got up and went to breakfast. I honestly don't remember the name of the place we went to, which is fine because it was not very good. We then headed out to do some outlet shopping. We stopped at the Mrs. Field's store, and Zuke got a chocolate chip cookie shaped like a pizza slice.....that was as big as his head! We then headed back down to Utah Valley, and had an early dinner at Tucano's before heading back home. It was a short trip, but the perfect double birthday getaway! I think we'll make this a yearly tradition.

Now, that doesn't mean that we didn't celebrate our birthdays.....we look for any excuse we can find to go out to dinner! For Zuke's birthday, we went out to dinner with my family at Goodwood. It was really yummy....especially the Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake! Yum! Zuke got a really cool ceramic rooster that Whitney & Kelly had brought back from San Diego. The funniest part of the night, though, was when Zuke got the exact same birthday card from me AND my parents! Guess we need to broaden our shopping locations! My parents got Zuke and I a really nice carpet shampooer for our birthdays, since we kept having to borrow my sister's all the time. For my birthday with my family, we decided to go to Olive Garden (pictures below). Aside from Addison getting freaked out by the automatically flushing toilets, we had a really good time and the food was good, as always. Tyler and Addison were concerned that I didn't have a birthday cake, so after dinner my mom and dad ran to the grocery store, picked up a cake, and brought it over to our house. That seemed to satisfy the kids, who I think were more concerned that THEY didn't have any cake. ;)

In Zuke's family, his birthday is on the 1st of August, his mom's & brother's birthdays are both on August 31st, and mine is the 1st of September. Since they're all so close together, we've made the tradition of going out with just us adults to one nicer dinner to celebrate all the birthdays at once. This year, it happened to fall on the day of my birthday. Yay me! We decided to head up to the Porcupine Pub & Grill in Sandy. We'd been there a couple times before, and it never disappoints! We went all out, ordering appetizers and desserts. The food was a-ma-zing! We were so stuffed when we left! Seriously, what better way to spend your birthday than with yummy food and the people you love?