28.

Tim and I just got back from vacationing in Portland, Maine, and let me tell you: always, always, always make sure you have five more days of vacation at home to vacation from your vacation :) Tim and my ideas of vacation differ: I prefer traveling and eating new foods and seeing the sights whereas he is very much a homebody and would prefer staying at home, playing video games, and taking the motorcycle out on day trips. When planning our vacation, we compromised: the first five days we traveled, and the last five days we stayed at home :) Win-win situation. It is so nice coming home knowing you don't have to go back to work right away. SO NICE. Especially when your birthday is in those last five days :)

My birthday celebration started the day before when I went to my sister's house. My niece and nephew made the cutest cards for me, and my sister gave me the most thoughtful and best tasting (meaning the chocolate, not the bath bomb or dish soap) and best smelling (the bath bomb and dish soap) presents. 

 The next day, October 14, was my actual birthday. I started it out by doing my daily Blogilates workout, then proceeded to eat the below muddy buddies prior to eating breakfast for the day :). 

 Tim and I tried out a new-to-us restaurant called The Fillmore for lunch. 

 It's the cutest place. I ordered two sliders: pulled pork and BLT, as well as an order of truffle fries (probably my favorite type of fries in the world), and Tim got a burger with truffle fries. We also got two pops and left with a mocha and a hot cider. Delicious food, but NOT worth $40!!! Yikes. We will go here again, but we'll definitely be watching what we order. Keep in mind my sliders were LITTLE. And Tim's burger was $12.50. Nope. 

 Tim got a mocha and I got an caramel apple cider to enjoy for the ride home. As soon as I tried it, I knew something was weird about it, there was something in it that I just. couldn't. place. And then....I realized the "caramel" flavor they add is BUTTER. Ewwwww. Nice try attempting something different, but butter does not belong in a drink. I'll be drinking a plain hot cider from now on.

 My mom stopped by with some beautiful flowers from their garden :) I think I'm going to plant a bunch of these in our yard next summer. They're so pretty!

 I decided that I wanted some apple pie for dessert (I'm much more pie person than a cake person), so we stopped at Meijer and picked up some apples and vanilla bean ice cream (and apple cider and pumpkins!). Tim helped by cleaning the pan and adding the butter to it, and I did the rest. He gave his moral support by providing his presence in the kitchen until I was done haha. I made us four mini apple pies. They're the perfect dessert when there's only two of you. That way we also didn't have a pie just sitting on our counter waiting to be devoured by moi.

I always bake leftover pie dough with some cinnamon and sugar. It's something my mom always does, and it's super comforting. And delicious. 

 We ended the night watching Tarzan (surprisingly pretty good!) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I proceeded to fall asleep during, so we finished it the next morning. I think whoever is making films is having a mid-life crisis because seems to me like almost every movie that has come out recently or is coming out is a reproduction from our childhood! And it's awesome.

Overall, I felt loved and had a great birthday. My next few posts will go over our trip to Maine, which I am SO happy we decided to go on, even though just a month ago, I was thinking it wasn't going to be possible! Tomorrow is back to work...but I am going back feeling refreshed and ready to start up my hobbies again after work. I am going to make sure Tim and I take trips every year. It is amazing how much a job can suck the life out of you, even if it's one you don't mind. I am going back knowing that my job isn't my life and am going to try and stay motivated after work to pursue my passions :)