Another year older…
Yup - today was my birthday! Kris and I stayed up late to celebrate the official start of my birthday at just after 1 AM on Saturday morning. We slept in a little late afterwards, but then, as promised, Kris made me breakfast in bed. He was planning on making it all special, with pancakes and omlettes and meats and juice, but neither one of us remembered that the last egg we had in the house we had used to make dinner the other night along with the sausage we had in the refrigerator….so it ended up being just pancakes and juice - but it was still really special! Kris brought everything necessary upstairs and on his final trip he revealed the last special mini-chocolate chip-studded heart pancake (that I wanted a lasting memory of)! (And it was kind funny because if you flipped it over it looked like the Mouse!) 
Afterwards, we got to a task which has been hanging over for us for a while - picking which of our formal pictures that we wanted prints of. It was a hard decision to make, especially because we had offered to let each set of parents have their choice of 30-35 prints apiece as well. Happily, Kris and I both had a good idea of what kinds of pictures we each wanted, so it was just a matter of going through a few of that “type” of picture and choosing the best one. It turned out that quite a few times both sets of parents had chosen the exact same print, and a bunch of times that there was a print all three of us wanted. I am so happy to say that we picked out and were able to order every picture that we desired!
While placing the photo order, we inquired with some of the local HAM radio acquaintances about the best Italian eateries in the area. I remembered (too late!) that the *best* Italian food I’ve ever eaten was up in Sky Forest at Cucina Cielo, where we had dinner during our mini-break just after we’d gotten engaged -but clearly this was a place that would have been too far to go to just for dinner. Instead, we got some great reviews for Bistango in Irvine, and Pepino’s in Mission Viejo. I opted for Pepino’s because Bistango looked a bit *too* pricey, and it also looked like Pepino’s had an awesome martini bar!
So it was off to dinner at Pepino’s. We both ordered Veal Parmesan, our favorite dish. I ordered an Italian Expresso Martini, which was a tasty, almost dessert drink. We were so full from dinner that we couldn’t even think about dessert, so I’m glad I got that martini! Afterwards, we went home and enjoyed some TiVo’d shows we’d been meaning to watch, and ended the day by setting all the clocks forward. It was very strange to have to do that on my birthday; I guess it is something I’m going to have to get used to with the new daylight savings hours. I lost an hour of my birthday, but I don’t mind - I’d rather have the extra hours of daylight at night!
