Happy Birthday Ashton!

So, last Friday (the 24th) was Ashton's birthday. Although he wasn't all that excited to be a year older, we had a fun time celebrating. Unfortunately, he was one of the only people that had to go to work on his birthday. (For those of you who aren't familiar with Utah holidays, the 24th is also Pioneer Day and just about everything closes for it, and there are also fireworks.) It was good for me that he had to work because it gave me time to make his cake and blow up some balloons. The cheesecake actually turned out pretty good for my first attempt. It wasn't the prettiest thing ever, but it still tasted good!

After Ashton got home, we went out to eat at Olive Garden thanks to a gift card from Steve and Gail! The food was really good and it was nice to get out. The amazing part was that we walked in and they immediately sat us at a table. That has never happened before, especially on a Friday night. The best part came later when the server came to box up our food. These are the boxes we got:
(For those of you who can't see, the small box says "Olive Garden" and the other says "Red Lobster.") Apparently they ran out of bigger boxes that said "Olive Garden" so they went and borrowed some from Red Lobster, which is owned by the same company. Anyways, we found it funny and I had to take a picture when we got home.

Oh, and for those of you who are curious as to what I got Ashton for his birthday, I got him an English translation of "Les Miserables" and also the version of the movie "Les Miserables" that he likes. I'm excited to read the book although I'm trying to wait for him to start/finish it. It's a wicked big book so I may be waiting for a while.

Here are some more pictures:

It took a little while to get all the candles lit, but the pyro in me loved it!

Making a wish.
Probably wished I had left some candles off,
especially since he was stuffed from dinner.

And he huffed and puffed and blew all the candles out. YAY!