Mindy and Kurt's Blog: My Fun Birthday

My 29th birthday is going down as a well-remembered one. I must say I had lots of fun. I took the day off of work and got to sleep in...well 9:30 actually. I laid around the house and watched TV, and then about ll:00am I decided to go for a bike ride. I haven't been on my bike for like a week and a half, so I felt the need to do so. I was just going to go for a stroll, maybe 5 miles one way and 5 miles back, but I ended up riding 18 miles roundtrip. I started out at Kurt's house and rode down towards Birdland Marina, down towards the Bontanical Center, Principle Park. I went all the way down to Gray's Lake, which was 10 miles from the house, so I rode through Water Works and back up to the house. Some hills killed me, so I took the chance to walk a little bit.

Here is a picture of me downtown by the Des Moines River (it's hard to believe that 3-4 months ago that was all flooded behind me).

Anywho, after I got back from riding, I rested a bit, and went to the west side and had my friend Erin cut my hair. I wish I got a good picture of it last night, but it "was" past my shoulders, now it's to the top of my shoulders. SUPER CUTE I must say. Kurt called me around 6:15ish, he was on his way back home from his bike race and he told me to get dressed and ready. I got dressed and put on my face. We left the house, and Kurt has a knack for taking me places by surprise. This year he took me to Taki's Japanese Steakhouse.

Here, you sit around a grill with other people and the chef puts on a show. Kyle, Julie, and Alexa joined us for dinner. It was so much fun watching Alexa's expressions. She was taking her chopsticks and imitating the chef drumming his equipment, and her eyes get big when he started a fired! The food was pretty good. I tried sushi for the first time. I must say I'm not a big "seafood" person, but I had some that had crab meat in it. I decided that I could handle that. Besides the sushi, I had soup, salad, fried rice, andchicken & vegetables. It was pretty yummy.

After the bar Kurt and I went to the southside for some fun bar-hopping. Our friend Matt and my roommate Kendra joined in on the festivities. We started out at a bar called Brew Haus. Matt decided that I had to have a shot at each bar we visited, so at this place, I chose Tequila Rose and a beer. The place didn't have very many customers and they had karaoke going on, so we decided to hop to the next place. Next stop was P.D's Bar. The shot here was a Spider Bite (butterscotch and crown royal) and a beer.

Matt gives a thumbs up for going out and having a good time.

Kendra (my roommate) and myself at P.D's.

After we left P.D's I chose to go to a bar called Club 2000. It wasn't a bad place, they had people there our age. Tequila was the shot of choice, then a beer. I wasn't drunk yet, but I could feel the buzz starting. We stayed here shortly to have a drink then it was off to the next place.

After we left Club 2000, it was off to our usual hangout, Southport. I couldn't tell ya the shot here because the bartender made a "surprise." Lets just say that it smelled like cat litter, but tasted very yummy.