The Big 3-4!

Last night I had my official birthday festivities. We started the night off at a steakhouse restaurant in Roswell called Stoney River. I had driven past there a ton of times and a friend of mine had been raving about it for two years so we finally went. It was great! I went with two friends and I had crab cakes with lemon caper sauce as an appetizer, but I have to ask, what is with crab cakes that are all crab and no cake? I mean, I appreciate seeing nice sized lumps of crab, but I don't understand it if there's no "cake". Yes, I guess it's filler to a certain extent, but I like a little layer of something to hold my crab cakes together. It was nevertheless delicious. For my entree, I ordered a 12 oz prime rib (smallest size), with sauteed green beans and caramelized onion mashed potatoes. Dinner comes served with these small, Munchin-sized dinner rolls with cinnamon butter. Now, I love me some prime rib and the mashed potatoes were wonderful, but the rolls and the cinnamon butter were to die for. They tasted like donuts. Oh my goodness, if I could have eaten a whole basket, I would have. Man, oh man, my mouth is salivating just thinking about them. I'm typically not a big bread-eater, but these rolls were divine! The butter was light (must have been whipped) and had just the right amount of sweetness. Yum!

After dinner we went back to my friend's house and lo and behold, a living room fully decorated and around 10 or so folks exclaiming "Happy Birthday" when I walked in. Very cool. I can't actually remember the last time I have a real birthday party and not just a dinner thing. It was fun! There was some drinking involved. I've said this God only knows how many times, but I'm not much of a drinker, but I was forced to take a shot of tequila. Mind you, this was a somewhat younger crowd and they like to get their drink on. So I took a shot, immediately regretted it and spent the next hour in a daze. Yeah, me and alcohol will never be close friends. That was it for me. The others continued to drink and after lots of hanging out, cracking jokes, more shots/beers/wine/etc. by them we decided to play this game called Apples to Apples. Soooo much fun! I know a lot of people think board/party games are lame, but this game was great. The link fully explains how to play it and we played a good two hours or so. I like it much better than Deal or No Deal. If you're looking for a good game that works with a good crowd, this one is a winner. I had a couple of bites of my birthday cake for good luck and ended up getting to bed around 2 AM. I had a great time. Tonight, I got invited to go out to Karaoke at a friend of a friend's bar. I suspect I got invited to be the designated driver, but that's okay. This group of friends is kinda cool and in the past I would have brushed them off and just stayed home, I think I might actually go. I have to ask myself "why not?" Sure, it's not my first choice of places to hang out, but really, what do I know? I spent a good chunk of my adulthood being too ashamed to venture out so why not just go out and try to have some fun?!?