The Big 4-0

Saturday I turned 40 and it was a great birthday.  In the past I have had some pretty crappy birthdays and I have to admit that a few weeks ago I was really worried about this one turning out to be disappointing as well.  It was hard for me not to build up my hopes as I have a tendency to do that when events are about "me".  Matt realized how important this birthday was for me, so he really made every effort to make it special.

The celebration actually started on Friday night.  Andy, one of my best friends, is exactly one day older than I am.  He was born on October 21, 1971, I was born on the 22nd.   A group of us went out for a nice dinner at Christopher's restaurant down in Des Moines.  We were actually lucky to get reservations for our party, about 16 of us.  It seemed that every other nice restaurant in Des Moines was booked for birthday parties!  A lot of people, evidently, share our birthdays (well, that's kind of a given).

Dinner was wonderful!  The staff at Christopher's couldn't have been nicer and made us all feel right at home.  The food was beyond excellent.  I was able to get the Prime Rib and was in heaven.  The meat was cooked perfectly (medium rare, just like I like it) and was accompanied by a tasty horseradish cream (yum!).  Oh and I have to mention the alcohol.  My drink of choice is the Gin Gimlet made with Bombay Sapphire gin.  I can honestly say that I have never had one as well made as the one on Friday night.  It was perfect.  I regret not talking to the bartender about what they did to make it so perfectly.

To top off our evening, Christopher's treated Andy and I to dessert --- the Chocolate Fall Down Cake.  Let me just say that it's not quite a cake and not quite a pudding, but it's ALL delicious.  They serve it with a raspberry sauce and scoop of vanilla ice cream.  I think they have to add the ice cream to cut the richness and sweetness of the cake itself.  The cake was the perfect way to end the meal and the company was even better.

Saturday started out perfectly for me, with English Premier League soccer.  I love watching the EPL and on Saturday mornings ESPN shows a match.  This week it was Swansea City @ Wolverhampton.  The score ended up in a draw at 2, but I loved every minute of it.  I would love to go to the United Kingdom just to watch a few EPL matches in person.

Matt and I spent the day lounging around the house as the birthday celebration was planned for the evening. It was a nice Saturday to watch college football, which was exactly what we did.  Of course, we could only watch the first half of the Texas A&M - Iowa State game, as Iowa State is kinda terrible this year.  They started out strong, but have now lost 4 straight games.

Matt was actually worried about the party on Saturday night.  He honestly didn't know who all was going to show up and he feared that people wouldn't show up, which in turn would crush me (even though I kept telling myself it wouldn't, yeah, it kind of would have).  Anyhoo, our fears were allayed when everyone came. YAY!  There was a lot of laughter and food.  My birthday cake was exactly what I had asked for chocolate cake with cherry filling!  A great thing is that I made out like a bandit in the Buffalo Wild Wings gift cards!  Hmmm, it's like everyone knows that we eat there at least twice a week so that we can play trivia.  Oh those gift cards will be used!

Matt did give me the best gifts.  Sure, he got me the movie "Bad Teacher" on dvd and a book on the history of Florida State Seminole football (my alma mater).  But what was touching was that he went all out to make sure that I had a truly memorable 40th birthday and the card he got me had me getting teary-eyed.  It reminded me of how much he truly loves me and how lucky I am to have him in my life.