Birthday Weekend: Days 3 & 4.

Manly fire-starters. And Amer cheating off the group next to us. 

Ryan insisted I give him credit for taking this lovely photo. He is a pyro was obsessed with the flames. 

What I wore: Skirt, F21. Tank, H&M. Boots, Makemechic.com. Necklace, AE. 

For months, I've been longing to have a beach bonfire.

Throughout high school we were kind of bonfire regulars,

 throwing "Farm parties" out at Ryan's parents' farm, 

roasting hotdogs, riding four wheelers in the dark,

 shooting fireworks at one another and just generally being morons around a fire.

But we're not quite mushy enough to have a romantic beach bonfire to ourselves, so we waited

until we had company to join us and we turned Sunday into a full-fledged beach day.

There aren't any fire pits on the beach by our apartment, so we drove south to Huntington Beach to do a tiny bit of shopping and then plop down in the sand. We played a few pathetic rounds of beach volleyball, basically just trying to keep the ball in the air as long as possible 

(which was not very long). 

I definitely ate sand awkwardly falling diving toward the ball and I think we ruined the legitimate volleyball game going on beside us because our ball kept running away onto their court.

It was fun, though...except for the part where I still can't move my arms.

When we got tired and it started getting too cold for swimsuits, we set up camp around a fire pit and set ourselves to the task of making fire. 

You'd think that, as veteran campers and fire-starters, 

we would have been extremely well prepared.

Wrong.

First, we had no little twigs to get the fire started.

We borrowed a hammer from the group next to us, but apparently splitting wood with a hammer

isn't as easy as the construction worker man in that group made it look. It was rough. 

I feared one of the logs might fly up and smack me in the face, but eventually we made ourselves a little pile of wood chips to catch on fire.

Second, our lighter wouldn't work. 

So, again, we had to sheepishly borrow from our neighboring bonfirers.

(We told them we'd be back next to borrow some hotdogs and marshmallows.)

Third, we were roasting with skewers. As in, the tiny metal skewers you use for kabobs.

And we had an oven mitt so the hot skewers didn't burn our hands off when we had 

to practically stick our arms into the fire to cook our food. 

But somehow, we managed to make hot food.

And I discovered the most amazing S'mores secret ever.

Marshmallow + Graham cracker + Hersheys = Good.

Marshmallow + Graham cracker + Reeses cup = Heaven in mah mouth. 

Seriously, go try it. Try it right now!

On Monday, the final day of my long birthday weekend, Ryan took the day off work and

we went shopping at Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. I was slightest unsuccessful in finding all the items Ryan wanted to buy from my birthday wish list 

(Dear Express, stop selling out of the skirt I want!) but we're trying again next weekend. 

In the evening, our very kind and considerate guests insisted on going to a hotel for the night 

to give us a date night to ourselves. A couple weeks back, Ryan suggested a fancy-pants

5 course meal for my birthday dinner. We checked out menu after menu,

but I was just too skeptical to drop $100 or more at a restaurant where I couldn't even

interpret the items on the menu.

So, where did we end up?

The Stinking Rose, a restaurant where everything is seasoned with garlic.

Perfect for a date night, right?

It ended up being a really cool atmosphere (each table had it's own little tent!), 

and the food was DELICIOUS. 

Like, lick-the-garlicky-plate-afterwards delicious (don't worry, I don't lick my plate in public). 

And we cleansed our garlicky palettes with Coldstone ice cream for dessert.

Because seriously, what's a birthday without ice cream?