Happy Birthday, Tony!

Happy birthday to my husband!! Tony is 31 years old today! We will be celebrating by going to one of our favorite restaurants, FireRock Grille at the public Stonewater Country Club just 3 miles from our house. They have one of the best birthday specials in town - free entree for the birthday boy/girl if you come on your birthday! He is talking about ordering the $13 Adult Macaroni & Cheese (it's delicious!) but I am trying to convince him to take advantage of the birthday special and order the $25 FireRock Filet: "A seared filet mignon with truffle mashed potatoes, asparagus, and a trio of sauces, onion marmalade, red wine demi glace, and horseradish cream." The filet (6 or 8 oz, I cannot recall) comes out seared on the outside and rare on the inside. You cut it up into smaller pieces and cook it on the "FireRock" that comes with it. The description of the "FireRock" is: "The unique volcanic “FireRock” holds at 500 degrees (which is where the restaurant name derived from), and allows you to cook your food selection the way you want it!! Each bite will be hot and flavorful allowing you to enjoy your meal to the fullest!" It is delicious, the sauces are amazing, and the sides are fantastic. We have both ordered it before. Having to "cook" your filet while you're eating makes me eat slower and be more aware of how full I am, which is good. I will probably order the FireRock Filet regardless of what Tony chooses.

FireRock Grille has a delicious nacho appetizer that we frequently order when we go there. But it of course adds so many calories and so much unnecessary food (and cost!) so I already told him we should not order any appetizers. They give you bread anyway, so we will definitely have enough food.

We haven't been there since mid-March when we took Tony's parents there for his dad's 60th birthday. I am really looking forward to it! I will post a picture tomorrow of the FireRock Filet as it looks when it's brought to the table, so that you can better understand the setup with the FireRock.

I baked cupcakes last night for Tony's birthday cake. I used a Betty Crocker French Vanilla cake mix and will be frosting them tonight with vanilla buttercream frosting made from scratch. I chose to make cupcakes instead of a cake so that we could easily freeze most of them rather than have a full cake sitting on our table all week while we have a slice each night. It is just too tempting to have that out and I felt that it would be easier to freeze cupcakes instead of a partially eaten cake. This way, we can take one out every so often when we feel like a treat. It also will lead to less impulse eating since it would take at least a few hours for the cupcake to thaw on the counter.

Just for fun, here is one of the first pictures taken of us back in February 2008:

We were 26 and almost 25 in this picture! Such babies!

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Katie's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Tony's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
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