Life gave me an eye twitch for my birthday.  And to that, I say NO THANKS!

But to everything else — an incredible dinner at El Five, a new cookbook that I’ve already dog-eared to death, soba noodles (don’t ask…), birthday breakfast at my favorite place, two bouquets of the prettiest flowers, a family BBQ, nail polish and a succulent terrarium, red velvet cake and so so many loving “Happy Birthday!” messages — I say YES, YES, YES!  I think I have a real good feeling about 28.

I could say A LOT about dinner at El Five but I think those photos (mostly) speak for themselves.  THE FOOD, THE VIEW, THE EXCEPTIONAL QUALITY OF EVERYTHING.  Joey and I are now in a thruple with that lamb sausage and hummus dish.  It’s maybe too soon to tell, but I think, of all the Edible Beats restaurants, El Five serves the best food.

Definitely not too soon to tell that this guy is my favorite human ♥

If you have leftover ricotta, you definitely make ricotta pancakes.  These are the rules, okay?  Post-pancake time, we biked to the Farmers’ Market and were disappointed in the offerings again.  Where the shishitos at, friends?!  We DID buy some corn tortillas and tomatoes for Sunday’s taco feast though, so I guess it wasn’t a total wash.

Oh and we had a totally weird run in with a guy who needed to borrow a cell phone on our way there.  Still not sure what was going on, but he was very desperate to use a phone to cuss someone on the other end out?  I don’t even know!

Rockies had fun and exciting wins on both Friday and Sunday so of course we went to Saturday’s losing game.  WHOA with these super crowded games lately though!  Also, please know we spent the afternoon cleaning our house and completely ran out of grocery energy, so we laid in bed and ordered them online instead.  I feel very very good about that life decision.

This is what the start of 28 looks like.  Aka waking up to roses, eating an avocado tartine (so less nauseatingly trendy than avocado toast, of course :P) and multiple cups of coffee.  Not mad about it at all!

After breakfast, we finished cleaning up our house and while Joey was outside mowing and whatever else he happily does in our yard, I was inside making quick pickled veggies, strawberry simple syrup, lunches for the week, pico de gallo and chimichurri for TACO DINNER!  Sometimes, when you have a group of six and every Denver restaurant feels small and loud, you just decide to host your own birthday dinner at home.  Plus we got to use my new grill and relax in the backyard with margaritas, grilled corn salad and homemade red velvet cake to complete the meal.  WAS SO PERFECT!

P.S. We let my sister pull a carrot from our garden and it was highly entertaining!

SPOILED! ♥♥♥

P.S. I asked Joey if turning 28 means I definitely can’t pass for under 21 anymore and he said no 😦