Happy birthday, Mark!

Happy 28th birthday to my husband (ok, yesterday). He would like me to point out that 28 is a perfect number. I think that means 28 is going to be pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty good.

We pre-celebrated on Sunday night with a feast of chicken biryani, red onion pickle, cucumber raita (all from Madhur Jaffrey’s An Invitation to Indian Cooking), and my espresso chocolate chip brownies for dessert, by special request.

We celebrated again on Monday night, with a bottle of cab we bought on our trip to Napa Valley and serious man food (dry aged ribeye steaks, gratin Dauphinois, and garlicky spinach). And I gave Mark my gift: a bottle of 1993 Lagavulin 16 year old Scotch from Islay. Honestly, I usually have trouble coming up with good gifts for Mark but I was pretty psyched about this one. The gift came with a detailed explanation of how, to get it, I had to brave a sea of well-intentioned but aggressive Scotch aficionados at Spec’s pushing $350 bottles on me. (It was rough.)

And, actually, I think his birthday is going to stretch one more day since we plan to celebrate with friends tonight. Check out Mark, way back in 1989!


Excepting the tooth situation, I think he looks exactly the same, no?

P.S. We're off to Vancouver and Whistler in a few days for almost 2 weeks of fun in Canada. Not that we update that often anyway, but I think updating will be sparse for awhile. Things I'm looking forward to: seeing Mark's parents, spending more time exploring Vancouver, eating lots of seafood, finally learning how to get up when I fall skiing, and being in the mountains!