My Weekend: Birthday Celebrations and Jimmy Buffett

It’s time to talk about my weekend. Holy moly was it a good one!

It started off with a birthday celebration on Friday night for my brother, Kevin. He requested steak and chicken fajitas and strawberry cheesecake for dessert. I was stoked about this menu! I LOVE fajitas!

First let me show you my dad’s beautiful plate:

dads fajita plate

He always makes such a gorgeous presentation of his food. Me on the other hand, I just make one big pile in the middle of my plate…

fajitas

His is way more visually appealing. I should probably start taking some notes!

After dinner, we hung outside for a while before heading in to open presents. As always we were highly entertained by the dogs attempting to get along. For whatever reason they just don’t like each other a whole lot. We’re still hoping this changes in the future!

moose abbie

Of course after presents comes birthday cake! kevin birthday

Strawberry Cheesecake from Costco. It was pretty darn good!

strawberry cheesecake

 

Happy Birthday, Kevi!

Moving on to Saturday

On Saturday morning we piled our stuff in the car and headed to Alpine Valley which is in Elkhorn, Wisconsin (45 minutes outside of Milwaukee). We were going to see the one, the only, Jimmy Buffett!

We broke up the five hour car ride with some rest stop breaks, and lunch at Subway. I ordered their turkey chopped salad and was super impressed by how good it was!

subway salad

Once we arrived at our hotel we freshened up before heading out to the concert. Dana’s mom had brought a few extra fun hats to wear so I borrowed one for the evening. They were so cute!

melanie jimmy buffett

Part of our crew: Grant, Rachel, and Mason

grant rachel mason jimmy buffett

Dana and me…

melanie dana jimmy buffett

Not pictured were Dana’s parents as well as a couple family friends, Denise and Jim.

Before heading into the concert, we took in the craziness that were the tailgating lots. These people had been there since noon or so just drinking and playing games, so you can imagine what kind of shape they were in when we were walking through at 8:00 pm! Needless to say, a lot of them didn’t even make it to the concert.

jimmy buffett jimmy buffett

Jackson Browne opened for Jimmy Buffett, but half of our group didn’t actually go into the concert until Jimmy took the stage. Once we got inside the concert area we were absolutely blown away at how many people were there! I tried capturing it on camera but it was too dark.

What is nice about Alpine Valley is that for one, it is outside, and two, the majority of the seats are lawn seats so you could pretty much sit stand wherever! We started in one spot but made our way closer and closer as the night progressed.

jimmy buffett

This is where we watched the end of the concert. We were fairly close!

jimmy buffett

Although I only knew about half of the songs he sang, I still had an AMAZING time. This guy puts on one heck of a performance. I got especially pumped when I heard “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise!”

I highly suggest that if you ever get a chance to see him in concert, that you do. You won’t regret it. Plus, the people watching was some of the best I have ever seen. There were lots of floral shirts and flip flops going on. Everyone was super nice and very laid back too!

The majority of my day on Sunday was spent in the car driving home, then going to pick up Moose. I was exhausted from not getting enough sleep and from being in the car all day, but it was SO worth it!

Are you a Jimmy Buffett fan? 

Dana grew up listening to it so he is a big fan and over the years has exposed me to quite a bit of Jimmy. I like him a lot now too!

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Easter Celebration #1

I am really enjoying myself this relaxing Sunday. I’m going to keep this short and sweet because I want to continue this day of relaxation, but I wanted to give you a quick update from last night.

We had plans over at Dana’s parent’s house to celebrate belated birthdays for both Dana and his mom, Sue, and also to celebrate Easter a little early.

As always, there was LOTS of delicious food! We started with some appetizers: veggies, almond crackers, and an avocado/edamame/pesto dip which was excellent!

veggie app

For our main course we had a chicken, shrimp, and artichoke sauté alongside tabouli and homemade almond biscuits (I brought the biscuits). Holy moly everything was so good!

chicken shrimp artichoke chicken shrimp artichoke easter 2013

Next up, dessert of course. We were celebrating two birthdays AND Easter afterall. Sue picked up a cake from Wuolett’s Bakery in Edina. To those of you who have never experienced this cake, let me tell you, it is fantastic!

birthday cake

 

The one she bought was called Princess Torte and it was raspberry and Bavarian cream layered with genoise (egg-rich golden cake) and wrapped in pastel almond marzipan.

 

dana and sue birthday

It was very refreshing and light tasting.

birthday cake

It was such a nice evening and now we can say Dana’s birthday celebrations are officially over and Easter celebration #1 was a success!

I hope you are all enjoying your Sunday. Catch up with you later!

 

Continue Reading Easter Celebration #1