Birthday Weekend
Yesterday was my 32nd birthday.
My birthday itself was pretty low-key. I'm still effectively the stay-at-home mom of an almost 7-month old infant, so most days are pretty similar from one to the next, but Miranda was super sweet yesterday. We had a nice dinner ... spinach ravioli, rosemary bread, and some good red wine, followed by hot fudge on salted caramel ice cream (thank you Ray!!!) ... and we had a quiet night after a long weekend.
The weekend was fantastic. My mom and Dan came out on Friday, both for my birthday and to see Miranda again. We made a good dinner on Friday and played board games. On Saturday, I got up and made everyone breakfast. Then Ray and Dan watched Miranda while my mom and I went to the Olympus Spa in Lynnwood. It was lovely. Olympus is a Korean-style spa, and very much like the real thing, according to my mom who visited one in Seoul last year. We got body scrubs and massages, sat in the herbal steam room and in the salt room (where you lay on a floor of canvas over a bed of rock salt in a dimly lit 140 degree space -- the air was strange but it felt amazingly good), we dipped in the hot pools and plunged in the cold one, and poured hot mugwort water over ourselves. We left there feeling amazing, and I am determined to find the time to go back soon.
That evening, Ray and I got all dressed up and went out for dinner at Canlis, while my mom and Dan babysat. Oh my god, I don't know where to start. Seven courses of amazing food, wonderful wine, the view, the architecture. It was all so much! So beautiful and delicious. I really have no basis for comparison. I've never been to any place like it. It was genuinely fine and elegant, but also very Seattle. The waitstaff were perfectionists, and the piano player is relatively famous. The food was so artful, I wished for my camera, but would feel ridiculous photographing the food (with a point-and-shoot) in a place like that.
On Sunday we all went out to brunch at Coastal Kitchen, and played games in the evening, and played with Miranda in between. All told, it was a lovely weekend. It was different, but I guess that is mostly attributed to life with our TinyGirl, and a strong desire to acquire less stuff and more experiences. At my insistence, there were only smallish gifts, and the real gifts were Olympus and Canlis, and back-up on baby care, and love and the company of family.
My birthday itself was pretty low-key. I'm still effectively the stay-at-home mom of an almost 7-month old infant, so most days are pretty similar from one to the next, but Miranda was super sweet yesterday. We had a nice dinner ... spinach ravioli, rosemary bread, and some good red wine, followed by hot fudge on salted caramel ice cream (thank you Ray!!!) ... and we had a quiet night after a long weekend.
The weekend was fantastic. My mom and Dan came out on Friday, both for my birthday and to see Miranda again. We made a good dinner on Friday and played board games. On Saturday, I got up and made everyone breakfast. Then Ray and Dan watched Miranda while my mom and I went to the Olympus Spa in Lynnwood. It was lovely. Olympus is a Korean-style spa, and very much like the real thing, according to my mom who visited one in Seoul last year. We got body scrubs and massages, sat in the herbal steam room and in the salt room (where you lay on a floor of canvas over a bed of rock salt in a dimly lit 140 degree space -- the air was strange but it felt amazingly good), we dipped in the hot pools and plunged in the cold one, and poured hot mugwort water over ourselves. We left there feeling amazing, and I am determined to find the time to go back soon.
That evening, Ray and I got all dressed up and went out for dinner at Canlis, while my mom and Dan babysat. Oh my god, I don't know where to start. Seven courses of amazing food, wonderful wine, the view, the architecture. It was all so much! So beautiful and delicious. I really have no basis for comparison. I've never been to any place like it. It was genuinely fine and elegant, but also very Seattle. The waitstaff were perfectionists, and the piano player is relatively famous. The food was so artful, I wished for my camera, but would feel ridiculous photographing the food (with a point-and-shoot) in a place like that.
On Sunday we all went out to brunch at Coastal Kitchen, and played games in the evening, and played with Miranda in between. All told, it was a lovely weekend. It was different, but I guess that is mostly attributed to life with our TinyGirl, and a strong desire to acquire less stuff and more experiences. At my insistence, there were only smallish gifts, and the real gifts were Olympus and Canlis, and back-up on baby care, and love and the company of family.