It was my birthday last Sunday. We didn’t do anything extra special like go out for dinner or have a party, but we did have two really great meals over the weekend in celebration.

On Saturday we went out to get our hair cut. My hair grows really fast and I was past due for a hair cut. It’s so nice now that it’s cut and it’s so nice to not have to struggle with my hair being too long!

After Chris and I got our hair cuts I decided that I wanted to buy a cake for my birthday. We haven’t had a cake, pie or really any dessert other than fruit for over a year so it was time to splurge on something tasty.

While we were in the grocery stores bakery picking out a cake I decided that I want to take a look at the fish section to see if they had any Halibut. Halibut grilled on the barbecue is tasty!

In the end we purchased over a pound of fresh halibut (expensive!), two t-bone steaks (they were on sale!), asparagus, a basket of zucchini and a basket of green peppers (on sale – 3.99 for a basket) and a basket of fresh peaches, garlic bread and a cake for my birthday. The cake was (is, there’s still some left) a banana chocolate chip cake with chocolate truffle between the layers and a chocolate cream cheese dressing. Needless to say it’s a rich cake and we’re only having small slices which is why there’s still some left!

So with all that delicious food my birthday was really a two day celebration. The steak and halibut were more expensive than our usual fair, but they made excellent meals, much nicer than the meals we probably would have gotten if we’d gone out to a nice restaurant on Sunday for my birthday.

I expect we’ll have another celebration in a week or two. Not birthday related though. We’re very friendly with our Greek neighbors and one of my neighbors grandsons is going to get engaged this weekend (i just gave him the name of one of my certified diamonds contacts from my time in the jewelry trade) and I’m sure my neighbors will have some kind of big engagement party soon that we’ll end up invited too. I’ve mentioned before how our neighbors give us food all the time (especially when they’re celebrating Greek Orthodox Easter) and inviting us to their special events … so I’d be willing to wager that we’ll get an invite to their engagement celebration. Mmmm more good food!

So … what do you do for your or your spouses birthday. Do you go all out and celebrate with a party and lots of gifts? Chris and I pretty much have everything we need (except more money!) so we don’t really buy each other gifts. We buy things when we can afford it and when we want it not just for special days or holidays.

I’ll post the recipes for the Grilled Halibut and the grilled T-bone steaks in the next couple of posts in case anyone’s interested in how we made our fantastic tasting food!