Birthday Celebration

Yesterday, I had the chance to spend ALL DAY celebrating my birthday. The celebration actually started on Tuesday night, when this packaged arrived at the door:

Graeter's ice cream! I received some of this ice cream as a gift at Christmas, and it is absolutely delicious.

Wednesday morning started at Shady Maple, where I had been bugging Brad to take me for the last three years. Shady Maple is an all you can eat buffet near Lancaster, with home-cooked comfort food. We went for breakfast, which was exactly what I wanted. You know that makes it even better? On your birthday, your meal is free!

We did some shopping in the gift shop, and in downtown Lititz (below is a picture of me a bear, which I promised Brad that I would post. I have an irrational fear of bears, so it thought this was hilarious) before heading to the Lancaster office.

Brad had an all-afternoon leadership team meeting, and I was lucky enough to spend the afternoon with this lady:

Lauren and I spent the afternoon catching up and doing some shopping in the Lancaster area. We had a great time, and she helped me pick out some fabulous new outfits for our upcoming trip--more on that later!

After a few solid hours of girl-time, Lauren headed back to the Harrisburg area, and Brad and I geared up for our final event of the day: a picnic with his friends and coworkers in the Lancaster office.

We had a great time hanging out and catching up. Brad even ordered a birthday cake and everyone sang happy birthday to me. It was very thoughtful, but incredibly embarrassing. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos, but hopefully some will be popping up soon!

I had an absolutely incredibly birthday. Thank you to all of those who called, sent text messages, or left Facebook messages. I feel so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life!

Blessings,
-Nikki

Date Night + A Double Date

It's crazy how life can get so busy so quickly! This was another one of those weeks that just flew by! Luckily, Brad and I were still able to spend some quality time together. Brad was out of town on Tuesday night, and I was able to have dinner prepped and ready to go when he got home on Wednesday evening. After a delicious salmon and quinoa dinner, we took a quick walk around the neighborhood and then went to check out YoFresh, a new self-serve frozen yogurt bar in the area.

Our verdict: delicious! Just watch out, those bowls are huge (and easy to overfill!).

On Thursday evening we were lucky enough to have a belated birthday celebration for Brad at the Savory Grille with the Guinans. Dinner was fabulous, and the company was even better. 

Pre-dinner photos

Just for the record, one of the only "rules" of date night is that no cell phones are allowed. Last night we did have to make an exception so that Brad could guide our dinner guests to the restaurant. 

For dinner, I had the scallops:

 And Brad went with the pork:

Everyone was in agreement that their meals were delicious. My favorite may have been the homemade mint ice cream (with mint fresh from their garden), which had swirls of caramel and chunks of pineapple. It's a combination I never would have put together, but was surprisingly delicious.

We've got more fun planned for the weekend, so there will be lots to catch up on. See ya later!

-Nikki

Birthday Weekend Recap

Brad's birthday weekend officially kicked off around noon on Friday, when I stopped by his office with some cake. We already had plans to meet for lunch, so why not have dessert first? Unfortunately, I don't have any photos, but the cake was delicious.

After cake and lunch, we headed over to the Wheeler's apartment to help them pack up their moving van. They're off to start a new adventure in Virginia, and we're very excited for them. We're also going to miss them a lot.

After we helped pack the moving truck, we headed home for a quick shower before heading to watch my first ever lacrosse game.

One of the guy's from Brad's office, Brian, helps to coach a local high school lacrosse team, so we went to check out a game. It was pretty interesting, and it was great to spend some time outside on a beautiful Friday afternoon.

After the game, we headed to That's Amore in Bethlehem for dinner (thanks for the gift certificate, Northwestern Mutual friends!). We started with fried mozzarella...

 I had angel hair pasta with shrimp, scallops, crab, and topped with a crabcake:

 Brad enjoyed pasta with veal-wrapped shrimp:

...and we both had enough left over for dinner on Saturday! Speaking of Saturday, we spent the majority of the day at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets. Brad loves to shop, so that was his choice of activity for the day. Because I was such a good sport (I really don't enjoy shopping as much as he does), I finished up the afternoon with this:

Do you remember the time that we went to Target and somehow ended up with an iPad?  Yea, this shopping trip was kind of like that. Brad was able to find a hoodie, gym shorts, socks, and new shoes (I had to talk him out of buying cologne, since that was one of his birthday presents). My big purchase? Five mini-sized bottles of hand sanitizer from Bath and Body Works. It's strange how things work out, isn't it?

The rest Saturday was pretty low-key, with leftovers for dinner and a movie on the couch (hey, at least it wasn't Jeopardy, right?). Sunday morning (Brad's actual birthday) started with a trip to church, but Brad wasn't feel very well and we came home after the service. After some extra allergy medicine, a nap, and lunch, he was feeling better. We took a trip to the gym and snuck in another nap before heading out to dinner.

We had made reservations at the Glasbern Inn, a local farm-to-table restaurant. We had a delicious meal together and celebrated Brad's 31st birthday.

The restaurant and the grounds were beautiful, and the food was delicious. Approximately 80% of the food that they serve in the restaurant is from their farms and greenhouses, which is really impressive! We each started with a salad, and then split this appetizer of meats, pate (I didn't eat any of that!), nuts, bread, and some kind of fruit foam:

I had chicken with vegetables, mashed potatoes, and huckleberries:

 Brad went for the pork tenderloin and pork belly:

We also each had dessert, of which I apparently failed to take a picture. We strolled around the grounds for a few minutes after dinner, and even managed to catch a glimpse of these guys on the way home:

Overall, it was a great weekend. My apologies for the longer-than-normal post. There was just too much that I had to mention!

Until next time,
-Nikki

Happy Birthday Brad

Happy birthday to my wonderful husband. Here's to many more birthday celebrations!