Tapas, biking, and birthdays!

Yesterday was E's 26th birthday so we had a very busy weekend. The weekend started with his Birthday Dinner. Our tradition is the birthday person gets to choose anywhere they would like to go for a special birthday dinner. It usually is a nice restaurant where we go all out, getting appetizers, drinks, and dessert.

E chose Cafe Madrid, a traditional Spanish restaurant. Spanish food is nothing like Mexican food, which is an mistake many people make. Spanish food is fantastic, we decided to do an 'untraditional' meal by ordering only one main course and splinting it. Instead we filled up on tapas, traditional Spanish appetizers. The tapas included a platter of Spanish cheese called Manchego, ham and spinach Croquetas, Spanish sausage in a fig sauce, and some fantastic calamari. We had huge glasses of excellent Sangria and a fantastic main course of sea bass in a mushroom sauce. Then to finish off the huge meal we both ordered dessert.

The next day was one we've been looking forward to for quite some time, biking at Deer Valley again. We did this last year and loved it (my blog entry from last year can be seen here). Well this year I had my new bike and it was a beautiful day up in the Utah mountains. After a fairly late start we began biking and had a wonderful time. One problem I had right off the start is I'm too brave, and got going to fast. After a mid air flip (luckily I wasn't hurt at all) I decided to slow my pace. I enjoyed the entire day, and other than a bad bug bite and a slight sunburn, the day was perfect.

Sunday was E's birthday and we started out the day by sleeping in and lazing around. We were both sore after the long day of downhill biking. We made some waffles, bacon, and hash browns for lunch, and lazed around some more that afternoon. I ended up sleeping and reading Harry Potter most of the day.

The weekend finished with a fantastic dinner with E's family downtown and some homemade raspberry pie. We had a wonderful time.

Now, for some photos of or bike ride:

This is probably about what I looked like before I took a face plant in the dirt. Look at those awesome aspen forests, beautiful-

We ate lunch at the bottom of the mountain in a great little outdoor cafe (notice the very tasty mint lemonade)-

E on I on the top of the trail. The best thing about riding Deer Valley? You only ride down, the ski lift takes you back up-

And the guys: Ben, David, E, and Logan.