Yummy

This is one of the most delicious meals I ever had, and my husband made it for me!

Man, I sure am blessed.

And hungry.

Benner turns 27

Yes dear readers, it's true: last Monday, May 24, I turned 27-years-old. And what an eventful birthday (and week) it has been. I went surfing on the west coast for my first and second time, there was cake and cards (and a nice bottle of pinot noir from my boss) at work, I got all kinds of awesome gifts from my wife (the surfing days included!)... it was just a special time.

And things were made all the more special by Rhianwen, who is usually not the best at keeping surprises. But this time she surprised me good. You see, there's this little place called Alcove that has a chocolate peanut butter chip cake I would eat every day for the rest of my life if I could. (For financial and geographic reasons, I don't. Oh, health reasons too, yeah.) So anyway, Rhianwen suggested the day before my birthday, "Let's go to Alcove tomorrow night and get that cake you love." I suspected something, but she played it down, not even balking when I changed my mind about going at the last minute. But the allure of the chocolate peanut butter chip cake won out, and I decided that yes, I must go to Alcove. It's my birthday, after all. So we went, and this is what was waiting for me there:



Yes, Rhianwen had eight dear friends waiting there for us. I was truly, truly surprised. And touched. Thank you, honey. And thanks Robins, Jongs, Maxwells, Chapman and John for coming out.

Also, a couple funny pictures came out of that night. Here they are:




This is already a long post, and I feel kind of self absorbed at this point because it's all about me, but there's more! Later that week, my mom sent me two packages, stuffed to the brim with Vermont foodstuffs. (She's not from Vermont, she just happens to travel there regularly.)



Look at all that! That's way too much stuff. Particularly excited about the beers (Vermonster was good) and the maple mustard sauce. And then I got a package from my dad, in honor of both my birthday and the Flyers heading to the Stanley Cup Finals, who sent me some Flyers swag.



Thanks dad! Go Flyers! Happy birthday, me!

UPDATE: Oh, I almost forgot, one of my bosses was actually on vacation during my birthday, but he did upload this YouTube video in my honor:

A Very Benner Christmas

Usually we spend Christmas day rushing around to the houses of various families. A couple hours here, a couple there, onto the next place and by the end of the day we're pretty exhausted. So despite being so far away from our families and friends this year, we were looking forward to celebrating with just us this year. So with our tiny little tree decorated and our lights up around the apartment, we settled in for a good night's sleep on Christmas eve.

The next morning we woke up, read some scripture, sang some Christmas hymns (we're not going on tour anytime soon), ate breakfast and admired our little Christmas scene:

Then we opened up all the presents, and this is what our scene turned into:

With all those great gifts, we were happy, and this is what we turned into:

That night, we had our friends Chapman and Becca over for Christmas dinner since, like us, they do not have family in LA. Becca's husband Ryan was originally going to come as well, but he had to fly to Seattle for his Grandmother's funeral at the last minute (Becca had to work and was flying there the following day).

So we cooked London broil with a Gorgonzola cream sauce and mashed potatoes with caramelized shallots. Chapman brought prosciutto-wrapped asparagus and Christmas cookies, and Becca came right from work with a fantastic bottle of wine, a spicy Syrah that complimented the meal perfectly. We all proceeded to eat, drink and be merry, and then we retired to the couch where we took this photo:

Eventually everyone left, and Rhi and I collapsed onto the bed in a food-related coma. It was a good Christmas.