This year my birthday fell on the Friday before the long weekend, which meant I only had to work a half day!  That was a birthday treat in and of itself.  After visiting with a friend and running a couple of errands, I picked Lee up from Stanford.  Lee hopped in the driver's seat and off we went to an unknown birthday destination.  He had told me to pack layers for the evening and the car was loaded up with food and our portable grill, so I guessed that we might have been going to the beach..... I guessed right.

We headed down to Santa Cruz to one of the few beaches that permit fires.  We didn't necessarily expect to land one of the coveted fire r ings - so it was a bit of a birthday miracle when we did!  It made the lovely evening all that more lovely.  While I protected the fire ring, Lee made SEVERAL trips back and forth to the car.  He came prepared!  My cute husband set up a table with a table cloth, real dishes and glasses and served me a multi course meal.  I got appetizers, salad, grilled sea bass and vegetables AND dessert.  And had we not been facing due south into the ocean, we would have had a gorgeous sunset.  :)

I always love it when Lee cooks for me (he goes all out) and to enjoy a meal while enjoying a summer evening on the beach was such a treat.  It was the perfect birthday dinner.

We continued the festivities on Sunday when we combined my birthday with a 4th of July BBQ and an invitation for people to visit our house.  Everyone brought delicious contributions and Lee grilled up several meats.  The food was so plentiful that we had to pull out the saw horses and lay a closet door on top of them to create a serving table.  And every last thing was tasty!  My most favorite dish was the potato salad.  My mom makes the world's best potato salad (anyone who has had it before will agree) and Lee watched how she made it when we were home at Christmas.  This weekend was our/Lee's first attempt at creating the potato salad goodness - and although it wasn't quite the same as my mom's, it was pretty darn great.  Hooray for Lee! 

We of course had the mint for my birthday dessert but a couple of our friends brought beautiful 4th of July cakes to share as well.

This was really our first time entertaining more than two people, and we LOVED having people over!  We can't wait to do it again! Thank you friends for celebrating with me/us and for the delicious meal!