My birthday surprise!

I had such a wonderful birthday this year! John and I haven't been able to go home often because it's so far away and we don't have a ton of days to take off so we were resigned to staying in RO for my birthday (as we did with Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years...). I had been really wanting to try out Cafe Habana (http://cafehabanas.com/default.php) - cuban food - in downtown Royal Oak so this seemed like the perfect occasion to do so. Here's a little more of the back-story... I think I was feeling lonely or sorry for myself about 2 weeks before my bday because we were going to be all alone on my 25th birthday and I turned on John a little bit for not planning something special for my birthday - he definitely didn't deserve it and I got over it after the little spat. Well anyways, my birthday was on Thursday night and we went to dinner and it was delicious! The restaurant was cool inside too - I loved the chandeliers.

Striking a pose

We also got a banana bread pudding for dessert that was ahhh-mazing! We devoured it - ahh so good.

We drove home and got to our apartment door. Right away something was up because the door handle was locked (we usually only lock the deadbolt). I asked John if he had locked it and he was like "um, yeah..." and I didn't think anything of it and unlocked it. I opened the front door and the hall light shone into our pitch dark apartment and I could then see the outline of a figure in the room, which made me scream! Then I heard Lindsey say "Jen" and I flipped on the light - couldn't believe it was her!

She had decorated the whole apartment with birthday decorations - she had been blowing up balloons the whole drive up to Michigan!

She had brought along margaritas and was mixing them up as soon as we got home. Next I opened up my birthday presents from mom & Lindsey -Lindsey got me a lot of great kitchen gifts and a back massager!

I was soo happy to have her up here for my birthday - it made it so special. That night we didn't get to spend too much time together - had to go to bed to get up for work in the morning. After work on Friday we went out for happy hour and dinner at Blackfinn, one of our favorites for the best happy hour deal in downtown RO. After that we headed over to Mr. B.'s, where we talked and Lindsey met an interesting character :)

Lastly, we had to go to Monterey Cantina for their late night special - everything is 1/2 off after 10pm! Unbelievable deal, and they have a margarita sampler that's amazing. We had a fun night and lots of laughs.


Lindsey came prepared to visit and had a list of things to do while she was here! We ended up going to the ice carving festival in Plymouth, MI on Saturday. It was very cold but a cool thing to watch.

We got lunch at a great place across the street from the festival - John and I got the soup in bread bowls :) That night, Pat & Nancy came over to our apartment to take us out to dinner for my birthday. They came with a bottle of Patron (ooooh goodness) and insisted that we do a shot for my birthday (all except Nancy), which truthfully didn't take much arm twisting.

After that we played a round of Catchphrase, one of my favorite games, and had a drink before heading downtown. We went to Pizzapapalis, a Chicago style pizza restaurant in Greektown (neighborhood in downtown Detroit). It was delish - we had Chicago style pizza when we were in Chicago so we knew what exactly to expect but it was Lindsey's first time. After dinner we went to the RenCen and took the elevator up 70 stories to Coach Insignia restaurant for dessert and drinks. The elevator that takes you to the top is glass, so you can see all of Detroit and Windsor, Ontario across the river in Canada.

Windsor, Ontario Canada across the river on the way up in the elevator

Nancy in the martini booth at Coach Insignia - sad that she's all alone, haha

On Sunday we took it easy and actually did a little shopping at the mall - Lindsey got the dishes she had been looking for back home. That night, Lindsey cooked us chicken sandwiches for dinner, Shoreham style :) We weren't looking forward to going back to work on Monday because we had such a great weekend! I am so grateful to John, Lindsey, Pat, & Nancy for making it such a great birthday!