let the celebrations begin!!

Mark's birthday was on Sunday . . .but we started celebrating last Tuesday. I made a huge cake for our Tuesday night group. I had the 'bright' idea to make two chocolate layers and two yellow layers because we were going to celebrate not only Mark's birthday but Drew's birthday also.  Mark loves chocolate and Drew loves yellow/white cake.  I used two 9" pans and two 8" pans . . ."thinking" that it would make this really cool cake.  My mother-in-law has since informed me that there needs to be several inches difference in the pan . . .I had already figured that one out!!  I made a 9" chocolate and a 9" yellow and repeated in the 8 inch pans.  So this cake was actually two whole cakes.  I layered them and put cream cheese frosting in between the layers.  It was one of the ugliest cakes I have ever made yet I was strangely proud of the cake!!

We needed balloons for our celebration. I love balloons!!

We also needed lots of candles!!

I had to convince our birthday boys that they did indeed need to blow out the candles!!

This cake might have been the ugliest cake ever but it was evidently delicious because our group ate the entire cake!!!

Our celebrations continued throughout the week. On Thursday night, we had reservations at Hot and Hot Fish Club. We had never eaten there before but had heard wonderful things about the restaurant. We even took Mark's momma to celebrate with us. The restaurant is known for their tomato salad. It is made with three slices of heirloom tomatoes and a wonderful aioli and black eye peas and corn and fried okra. Sounds like a weird conversation but oh my goodness, it is wonderful. I wanted to take some photos but I only had my big camera and I thought it would be obnoxious. For our entree, I had a fillet that was to do for!! The sauce was spectacular. Mark had duck and stone ground grits and figs. He said that it was the best meal he had ever eaten in a restaurant. Mark's momma had red snapper. On Friday night, I cooked a wonderful meal of fresh veggies that I purchased at the local farmer's market. We had stir fried squash and zucchini and I cooked boiled okra for Mark (no, I do not eat okra cooked that way!!). Mark said that he didn't want me to make another dessert so I bought coconut Popsicle for him. We continued the celebration into the weekend . . .but I left my camera at my mother-in-law's house so that post will have to wait!!