Blaine's Birthday Celebrations...

I'm pretty crazy about birthdays. I enjoy them. I enjoy my own. I enjoy making people feel special on theirs'. I feel that it really is such a special day! Anyway, my dear grandma really had this whole birthday thing down. When she lived with us, she'd spoil me to the max on my "birthday month." All throughout February, she'd do little things like make me my favorite food or buy me a small present. So I've been doing the same for Blaine. He loves it! It  kind of got out of control this year. He'd wake up everyday super excited to see what surprise I had for him. I've created a monster! But in all seriousness, I love making him feel extra special in September.


I bought Blaine little practical things that he wanted throughout the month. He complained one day that he didn't have like a travel mug or water bottle to take on the go. So I got him a Tervis tumbler of the Miami Heat with a lid on it. He is now obsessed with it. It's hilarious. He loves the fact that it really does keep your drinks hot/cold and that there isn't any condensation. Like I've mentioned before, Blaine is one particular guy. For his actual birthday, I got him a Blu-ray player. He's been dying for one for a while now. He has always said that with a Blu-ray player, he would be able to use the full capacity of his TV. We found a good Panasonic one on sale at Best Buy and also got a free Blu-ray movie with our purchase! Blaine was really happy with his gift. We also went looking for any Blu-ray deals. Apparently, Blockbuster has some pretty cheap Blu-rays! We bought Inception for $10! Blaine also enjoyed receiving cards and gifts from family in the mail. Thanks to all those who remembered him on his special day!

Usually, we go out to eat quite a bit in September. Blaine gets all these birthday club deals and we put them to good use. But we saved  most of the eating out till the end of the month, so that my sister could tag along in her visit. But we did go to Tucanos, Cafe Rio (twice), and The Melting Pot (thanks to Damaris). The only place (that's a usual birthday dinner for Blaine) that we didn't go to was Happy Sumo. For Blaine's actual birthday dinner, I surprised him. I told him that he had to dress nicer than usual and that it was in Salt Lake. At first, he thought we were going to The Melting Pot. The Melting Pot is both of our favorite restaurant and we hadn't been together. But I told him that it wasn't it. About halfway to the restaurant, he figured out that I was taking him to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. He was oh so excited. We have been wanting to go for a while, but that's a pretty expensive place! Luckily, I found an amazing deal on Travelzoo a couple months ago for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. I was so excited. I don't know how I held it from Blaine this whole time. 

It was a great experience. We were welcomed warmly by all the staff. Everybody kept on saying "Happy Birthday" to Blaine. The service was incredible. Our table was simply decorated with large confetti circles and a card from Ruth's Chris. We were so hungry and excited to eat! We ate like 2 loaves of their sourdough bread before our appetizer came out. Not a good idea. We needed to save room for the good stuff! Anyway, we shared mushrooms stuffed with crab meat for our appetizer. The mushrooms were jumbo and the crab meat was so fresh! We each had a pretty large caesar salad, that we devoured entirely. We ordered cherry cokes that were out of this world. We're cherry coke fans but we never knew cherry coke could be that amazing. Our entrees were the best part of the whole meal. We each had a petite filet. I had mine with bleu cheese, garlic and panko crumbs. Blaine had his Oscar style (Crab cake, asparagus and béarnaise sauce). The steaks were so perfectly tender. By  now, we were pretty stuffed but there was no way we wouldn't finish our meal here! Our sides were a large amount of mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. They weren't anything amazing, but they were the perfect compliment to the flavorful steaks. We could barely finish them. The plates come out being 500 degrees. You literally see and hear the steak sizzling on your plate. I asked why they do this and our waiter replied that it kept the steak warm throughout our whole meal. Genius. For our dessert, we had the Chocolate Sin Cake. It was a flourless cake that was really good. I quietly sang "Happy Birthday" to Blaine and he blew out his candle. It was the perfect ending to our dinner. We had such a wonderful time being together, eating good food, and just talking. 

This is Blaine's "this-is-amazing" face. 

We were done around 10pm (it was a late dinner). We walked to our car and just reclined our seats and looked at the stars through the sunroof. We needed to kill sometime before picking up Damaris from the airport. We held hands, talked, and I gave Blaine his birthday card from me. I love birthday cards. One of us always gets teary-eyed at one point or another. We hugged for a good minute and realized that it was finally time to pick up Damaris! We were both really excited. Blaine was especially excited since she was bringing him his birthday gifts from Miami. He said that he felt like Damaris was Santa Clause or something.


Every year, I try throwing some surprise party or get-together for Blaine. But this year I just wanted it to be simple and private. I'm glad I went this route. It was such a memorable night and it was everything that I imagined it would be!