Thirty, Flirty and Thriving

It's official. I am thirty. It's a bit bizarre and I don't really feel like I could possibly be thirty already, but I am :-). To celebrate, we headed up to Carson City / Tahoe the day before my actual birthday. We stayed with Jason's mom Judi which was great! It's so relaxing spending time with her at her home, plus it was so much fun to watch her enjoy her grandson (and grand-dogs of course)!

On my birthday we got a leisurely start. The munchkin slept in, as usual, and then we had a nice breakfast cooked by Jason and then headed off to explore Virginia City, NV.

It was absolutely freezing so we bundled Eli in about 15 layers and strolled up and down the main street of town. We quickly realized that we were too early for the opening of the official "season" so many of the landmarks weren't open to the public yet, but we were able to see a beautiful Methodist church built in the late 1800's.


You wouldn't expect such a beautiful building in this little rough and tumble western town, so it was quite surprising when we walked through the front doors. I'm usually more a fan of Gothic architecture (might be why that was my focus in college!), but this was a wonderful mixture of the ornate and the simple. The interior was all in wood with beautiful carvings and exquisite stained glass. It was just an amazing beautiful and peaceful place to visit. That evening we had a DELICIOUS and relaxing birthday dinner at a little wine bar in Carson City. The food was amazing and the munchkin was wonderfully well behaved and all in all it was the perfect day :-)

We extended our celebration on Saturday, when Judi graciously volunteered to watch Eli (we really had to twist her arm ;-) and we headed off to South Lake Tahoe to have a date night! We had dinner at this wonderfully charming little restaurant, Cafe Fiore, recommended by Sarah. Thank you again Sarah!!

It only has seven tables which gives it an amazingly cozy and intimate feeling. The service was wonderful and the food was sooo good! We started with their homemade garlic bread which was scrumptious! If you like garlic, this is a must!
We each had a delicious pasta meal and shared a wonderful Cabernet, but I must say that the highlight of the meal was dessert! We shared their homemade white chocolate ice cream topped with fresh strawberries and blueberries. It's hard to put into words how delicious this dessert was. It's not super cold like regular ice cream and is much smoother, without that iciness that you often get with ice cream out of the freezer. It's not too sweet either which sometimes tends to happen with things labeled "white chocolate". In all honesty, it seemed like more of a complement to the fresh fruit that the main focus. If nothing else, we would return just to have dessert again, but we've decided that this will be a new regular spot for us when we are in the area.

After dinner we headed off to Apres Wine Bar to enjoy some wine tasting. Apres has enomatic tasting machines which was a new experience for both of us, but lots of fun! You purchase a card that you insert into different enomatic machines and then you can press a button and select which wines you would like to taste. The atmosphere was casual and fun and the bartender was extremely warm and helpful. Another spot we've added to our rotating itnerary!
All in all it was the perfect weekend away: food, wine, shopping and family! The thirties are off to a good start!