Mama's birthday dinner:)

John had off of work this week. We of course have been saving his vacation days all year in case we got our referral this year and needed to use them towards our trip to Colombia. We decided that if we didn't get the call by October 1st, that the chances of us traveling in 2010 would be slim, so he might as well go ahead and burn a week of vaca at the end of October. It has been a great week having John home all week. He has had fun experimenting with cooking and has had dinner ready every night. He also has been able to help pick Athena up from pre-school, something he is never able to do during the work week with the hours he works. He kept Athena home on Wednesday for a Daddy and Ena special fun day and we also kept her home Friday for a family fun day since I had off Friday also.

John and I have a tradition of celebrating special occasions with dinner at The Melting P#t, a fondue restaraunt. This restaurant can be rather spendy though, if you go all out and make an evening of it which we tend to do:) Anyone who knows how much the fees are for an international adoption, realizes what a financial stretch it is to do it a second time and that spendy dinners out are certainly not in our budget at the moment. My sweet hubs decided to re-create the same dinning experience at home for half the cost and it was so good!

We tried a new cabernet (since cabernet is my fave) and it was really good:)

We had yummy veggies with tempura batter. Beef tenderloin, shrimp, lobster & chicken breast. Also, gruyere, swiss & white wine fondue with apples, celery, carrots and pumpernickle bread for an appetizer.

One happy birthday girl. Ahhhh, 29 again:)