28!

My birthday! My bday was mid September and I turned the big 2-8!  Matt is really great about making birthdays special. He always has been and loves giving (and getting surprises). We started off the celebration with dinner with friends the night before my bday at Little Donkey in Homewood and then dessert at Steel City Pops. The food was great and the company even better! On our way to dinner Matt surprised me with tickets to an upcoming Lumineers concert! I LOVE them! (as noted in previous posts!) I haven't been obsessed with a band in a long time... I am obsessed with them! I love the gritty soul in their voices and in their lyrics.

On Thursday, my actual birthday, Matt brought me breakfast in bed and a card and gift to start the day. I was pleasantly surprised to unwrap the gift and find a diamond cross necklace inside! :) It is gorgeous!!! He is so, so good. Love him.

Off to work I went to be in a video for this project I am working on. I had my hair and makeup done and then sat in front of a green screen and did an "interview" and read from a teleprompter. It was pretty fun! I got to my office and could smell the lillies before I even got to my door! Matt sent a gorgeous bouquet of flowers that made my whole floor smell divine. I left work a little early and did some shopping and went home to get ready for my hot birthday date!

We went to a great local restaurant, Chez Fon Fon for a pre dinner drink and then went up the street to Hot and Hot Fish Club for dinner. I was soo pumped about going to Hot and Hot because it is one of the best restaurants in Birmingham and the chef just won "Best Chef in the South" for 2012! He is really well known across the country and so I have been dying to go and taste what all the talk is about.

We went all out on our order... A nice bottle of wine, appetizers, incredible entrees and dessert (with a candle!).. Every bite was better than the last. I mean, you only turn 28 once, right?  It all definitely lived up to the hype. We sat on the patio and about half way through dinner this group of about 15 came and sat a two if the tables near us. The patio is pretty small, ab 5 tables total, so they were pretty close to us. We spent several minutes of our conversation trying to figure out the group dynamic. The best guess we had was that it was work related, maybe a training class. They were pretty young with a few older gentlemen.  Well, when the waiter came to bring us our check he let us know that it had been "taken care of".  Our jaws dropped!  The waiter told us the gentleman in the red shirt at the table behind us picked up our tab to apologize for his group's noise and disruption... !  Matt went over to thank him and told it him it was completely unneccessary, but thank you. They said when they saw it was my birthday that they felt bad for ruining the evening - so the dinner was on them. The guy's company obviously paid the tab, but we were really grateful! Who doesn't love a free $200+ dinner?!

We finished our wine and dessert and decided.... Let's go to Knoxville tomorrow :) Gotta love those last minute trips to see the Vols!  At the moment the Vols were ranked #23 and FL was in the top 10 and Game Day was going to be broadcast from campus - - - Matt and I are hopelessly devoted to the Vols, so we couldn't NOT go :)

We drove up to Chatty Friday night and spent the night with the Gran-Byrons.  Benny Boo stayed with his Grandma and Grandpa and headed North on gameday. We got to see my sweet friend C5 and her 9 month preggo belly and my bestie Kelsey and her hubby Ryan. We had so much fun tailgating but the game was a little less enjoyable.  It was such a dissapointing loss but I am so glad we went.  Two days later C5 had her baby :) - a boy!  I am so glad I got to see her before his debut!

It was a great birthday celebration... and the party didn't end there!