Best Husband Ever

Wowza, I've been meaning to get this birthday post together for weeks! Well it's here, and it was quite the birthday!

My day (January 19th) started with me finding notes around the apartment from my lovely husband :) It was such a fun way to start my birthday! He knows how excited I get about my birthday, so he definitely had fun with it and went all out this year.

Here are two of a handful of notes I found that morning!

After work, we went to dinner at a place we've heard so many people talk about - Pairings. There's a wine shop connected to this cute restaurant. You can buy your wine next door and have it corked at the restaurant to enjoy! The atmosphere is great.

Some of you artists will appreciate this - Nick was trying the "rule of thirds" taking this photo ;) At least it shows he listens to things I say! 

My handsome date

Our delicious dinner - my grilled chicken panini and salad and Nick's sausage pasta with flatbread. We shared some wine too, it was great. 

 I opened my card from Nick after dinner and my big surprise (huge! This is not our norm at all) is a new laptop! I had tears in my eyes reading the reasons he wanted to get one for me. He is so darn sweet and thoughtful. 

 Here's my amazing cake! 

My tiramisu layered cake from Byerly's - known for their awesome baked goods. 

My mouth waters thinking about this cake. It was so moist and so so good. 

I also opened cards/gifts from family, here's a few! More to come on what I got so far with my Charming Charlie gift card.

Another reason I have the best husband ever:

After a rough past two weeks, I came home last Friday to these pretty flowers on the counter. He accompanied them by sweet words of encouragement.

 I'm thankful for him every day, and when he does extra sweet things, my heart just melts.

I also want to share this great salad we've become pretty accustomed to. 

We learned this from the friends we stayed with when we moved here. It's a simple salad, really, but enjoying it so many times as a staple with our meal, we really liked this addition to meals and made it happen at our own place too.

It has an organic spring salad mix, strawberries, crasins, and walnuts (they're in there somewhere). This is before the dressing, but it's so fresh and SO good! You could also add grilled chicken, shrimp, or whatever you want to make it even heartier. 

I'm now trying to figure out what food to have for the Super Bowl tomorrow. Last year we went all out, see that post here (I can't believe we ate all that food...) this year will definitely be more simple, so we'll see what we come up with.

Enjoy your weekend!