Quarter Century Celebration

Yesterday was birthday #25. I awoke to ton of Facebook "happy b-days" and texts from my family and friends. However, the nicest part of my morning was the beautiful bouquet of fall flowers Al surprised me with.

Don't mind my creepy eyes in this picture...allergies. :/

My favorite thing about birthdays is getting spoiled with food. For my first delicious meal of the day, I chose brunch at Le Peep. I got my favorite, the Eighteen-Wheeler-french toast, eggs, bacon, and breakfast potatoes-and a Cafe Vienna. Yum. We had great service and awesome food!

After that, Al and I headed to Hessel Park for a book date, since the weather was so gorgeous yesterday. We grabbed yet another coffee (it's my birthday-don't judge) and laid out a blanket. We ended up skipping our books to lay around and chat. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. Afterwards, Mila and I went on a mommy-daughter date to the dog park, while daddy took a nap.

One of the absolute best parts of the day was when Al and I headed to the mall to look at wedding bands! We both found what we are pretty sure are our future bands. I was thrilled with how they both looked and, as usual, we got great service at Kay! Al then played the role of the patient fiance while I wandered around Sephora for about an hour. I tried out new makeup and had about a 30-minute consultation with one of the employees, while Al watched and wandered. :) I've never been in this store before; given my addiction to beauty products, I thought it was kind of a poor financial decision waiting to happen. However, I really enjoyed the attentive service the employees provided and the decent prices. I will definitely be back!

Once we got home, took some time to get ready, and I tried on all my new make-up, we went out to Biaggi's for dinner. I've only been to this restaurant once and Al and I often avoid it, thinking it just seems kind of boring, but I've got to tell you-this meal was amazing! The bread is much better at Manzella's but Al and I thoroughly enjoyed our enormous seafood dishes. The calamari appetizer was one of the best I've had in town. The service however, left much to be desired. There was a lot of waiting around and the special, the Herb-Crusted Swordfish, was actually described as "swordfish, served on a bed of greens, if you will, with a crust of herbs". Al and I were pretty humored by this, until we spent uncomfortably long periods of time waiting for waters, photography service, and our check. Sheesh.

We wrapped up our night at the movies. We planned to see The Other Guys, but ended up seeing Going the Distance. Lucky for us, this movie ended up being hilarious! We LOL-ed the whole way through! Overall, my birthday was awesome, with all of the credit going to Al. 

Since I've turned 25, I've come to two incredible realizations: this was my last birthday as Lisa Monteer, and I now have to check the 25-34 years old box when taking surveys.