Turning 29 Was a Lot of Fun
Growing up birthdays were always a big deal. My parents always did a great job of making sure the day was special. Jenn knows that I'm basically a 29 year-old kid so she's kept the tradition alive. This year though, she went all out. Although I do have one gripe, we did promise not to get each other gifts this year. So instead of buying me a gift she scheduled an entire day for us. I still think that was cheating but its water under the bridge at this point.
Right before we went to bed the night before my 29th birthday she went out and decorated the kitchen area. I guess during the work week she had purchased a sign with The Avengers wishing me a happy birthday. Like I said I'm a 29 year-old kid. So when I woke up I came out to an awesome happy birthday sign and our chalk board with a happy birthday greeting. We started the morning with Jenn bringing home Starbucks (she knows the way to my heart). My parents sent me a gift for both Jenn and I for our birthdays. A Sonos Play 1 speaker. So our Sonos home is expanding. I love it! And boy does it sound great.
For my birthday Jenn gave me three clues (in actuality there were 4 but one is not necessarily for public knowledge). The first clue said that there where something savory in my future. And in this cool little bottle was a print out for our reservations for brunch (my favorite) at the Back Bay Bistro near Balboa Island. We got there at around 11AM and got a great table overlooking Balboa. Their brunch is setup as a two course meal. You start off with a soup or salad and then an entree. Jenn start with their carrot soup and I had the wedge salad. For our main course I had the shrimp risotto and Jenn had spaghetti bolognase (not the biggest shocker).
The best part of all was the consistently refilling of champagne. They made sure your glass was never empty. The food was great too. I especially loved the risotto. I've had overcooked risotto before but this was perfect. And the shrimp were out of this world, huge and fresh. Jenn loved every bit of her meal as well. She even let me chug her champagne as well. So that was nice.
When we got done with brunch we headed back to our car for the second clue which said "something satirical". Inside the bottle were two tickets to see Antman at the Cinepolis Luxury Cinema in Laguna Niguel. Before we headed to Laguna we had some time to kill so we took a quick stroll around Balboa.
When we got to the theater in Laguna Niguel we were shown to our giant loungers and given a menu. We were still stuffed from brunch so we stuck with each of us just getting a cocktail. I got my go-to Old Fashion and Jenn got some sort of punch cocktail. Both were really good. The theater itself was easily one of the nicest theaters I've ever seen a movie in. The loungers were huge. The menu had everything you could ever want to order. It was a really great luxury movie experience. After brunch, champagne, and an Old Fashion it would be a giant understatement to say I was beyond relaxed.
Sadly Antman was not a great movie. But we will talk about that in a future post. When we got done with the movie we were both relaxed and bummed that the weekend was drawing to a close. Jenn had one more clue which was Something Sweet. It had directions to Casey's Cupcake on our way home to go pick up my favorite Red Velvet cupcake. Sadly we were both exhausted at this point and skipped it. From there we picked up Flame Broiler for dinner, watched The Daily Show, and finished the night watching The Internship (one of my favorite movies).
It was one of the best birthdays I've ever had. It was the perfect "Joel" day. Brunch and a movie should be mandatory every Sunday if you ask me. I can't thank Jenn enough for planning out such a special day for me. It was one of those days that I will never forget.
For those wondering Jenn's 28th birthday wasn't to shabby either. We spent much of the afternoon and evening using our annual passes at Disneyland. We went on more rides on this outing then any other time so far with this annual pass.
