The restaurant is on Chuckanut Drive which goes along the water, looking out at the San Juan Islands. The best time of year to make the drive is the summer, and even though it's been a bit of a rainy start to summer around here, the evening that we had our reservations was the perfect summer evening - gorgeous!
We left early enough that we weren't in a huge rush, we were able to stop and enjoy the views.
Dinner was okay, though not really spectacular. I would have probably been a bit disappointed if the majority of our check hadn't been covered by a gift certificate. We probably won't be back there on our own dollar. But it was still fun to have a night out. 
The view really was the best thing about the restaurant, it was gorgeous. We had a great table right by a window looking out at the water.
Besides, even for a less than fantastic meal, it is still fun to put on a cute pair of sparkeley flats.
Over-priced mediocre meal: not really my thing.
Dinner shared with my best friend and a beautiful view: yes please, anytime!
I've talked before about what a special place this deck is to me, I love the view from that space, it's one of my favorite features of our house. The staircase makes the view more accessible and useable. I always wanted it to be a more useable space for everyone, this did it.
But like I said, it's not like the whole day was shot. I still celebrated (quietly). I had a lovely conversation with my mom, neither one of us is much of a phone-talker, so being on the phone for a couple of hours felt luxurious. It made me miss her, but in a good way, not a sad way.
I also treated myself to a much needed pedicure and on a whim I decided to have the gal wax my eyebrows (first time for that!). In the late afternoon the husband and I took Bambino for a walk on the beach. We don't go there enough, one of my resolutions for 32 will be to spend more time there, it's beautiful. Even though it's been a very rainy end to spring here, the sun was nice enough to stay out for most of the day, it actually felt like summer. Growing up in California, I loved having a "summer birthday", pool parties are the best! My first year in WA, I realized that I no longer had the guarantee of gorgeous weather on my special day. The sunshine was not taken for granted!
The day finished much better than it started, mostly because my attitude relaxed a bit. The reality is that 32 still sounds very old to me, but I would never want to go back to 22, or even 28. I have a great life, I am where I should be and there are many good things ahead, I just needed a day to adjust to my new age. 
Later in the week there will be more birthday celebrating, this time with more family around, but the day itself was special, I liked spending it quietly with the husband. Speaking of whom, for my birthday, one of the gifts he gave me was a gorgeous wisteria vine, found at my new favorite local nursery. We are going to plant it in a container that he is making out of cedar. It's home will be on our back patio where I am going to train it to climb up the supports for our upper deck.
But all that watering and rain combined with the bits of sun we've had has not only made my vines grow (better than I've ever seen them!), but weeds and grasses have also been growing in. Even a thorough spraying with the organic vinegar weed spray was only temporarily effective. It was pretty frustrating to think that after the work of transplanting the vines, they could end up being choked out again by grass and weeds. Sooooo, I got to work and started weeding. The picture below shows what my little vineyard looked like after the first day I spent weeding, it was raining and the work was pretty tiring - I initially hand picked every weed, so I only got through one row.
Although we aren't a newspaper buying household, my in-laws are regular newspaper readers. My mother-in-law was kind enough to bring over her stacks of used papers. I also ended up using my own huge stash of paper grocery bags. The weather outside was perfect while I laid down the papers, constant light rain but no wind. I didn't have to hose down the papers at all because it ended up raining pretty much steadily for the next day. 
The next step in my anti-weed campaign was straw. It's important to say that it was straw and not hay that went down because hay can re-seed itself (resulting in a crop of hay - not what I'm going for when the idea is to be weed/grass free), while straw is seed-free, so it will decompose without re-seeding. The husband was nice enough to pick up a bale of hay for me at the farm-supply while I was at work on Saturday, so it was ready and waiting for me to spread on Sunday morning. It was sunny and pleasant during the morning, which meant turning on the sprinkler to give the straw layer a nice soaking so it won't blow away [too much] if it gets windy. 
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