As someone who likes to plan things, I always have birthday plans made pretty far in advance. This year though, it just didn’t happen. I was helping my parents with their move to Florida and busy getting business-type things done for my awesome Lumos Couples.

My fiancé Tony (we’ve been engaged for 9 months now but that still makes me feel really giddy and weird to say!) totally came through and surprised me with super thoughtful plans. My birthday fell on a Friday this year, woot woot! and he surprised me with dinner on the patio at Charlie’s in Prior Lake. I had been wanting to go there for a while so I was pretty darn excited especially since it was one of the first nice days.

It was warm during the day but cooled off by dinner time so we ended up eating inside, but still, the inside of the restaurant is really nice too. My family kept telling me that we weren’t going to do anything for my birthday since things were crazy with the move, but Tony arranged for them to meet us at the restaurant too! Since my dad is down in Florida now and my mom is heading there soon, my times with them were limited and  I was grateful to see them.

We ate a delicious dinner together and indulged in a large fishbowl of delicious goodness to share. It was bluish green and even had swedish fish swimming around in it!

Tony and I drove home from dinner and I stuck my head out the sunroof for a while and enjoyed a view of the stars and the gorgeous evening breeze. Maybe it’s weird but I love doing that! The plan was to have a fire after dinner, but again, it was chilly so we enjoyed a quick cigar on the deck when we got home.

As if that wasn’t enough, he surprised me by taking me to Punch Bowl Social in St. Louis Park the next day which I’ve wanted to check out since it opened. I was really excited but a little bummed that it was just the two of us there. I thought it would be a great place to hang out with a group of friends. As soon as I had that thought, I noticed a couple of my friends lurking in the corners waiting for me to get there! He planned for all my friends to be there as well!

We celebrated Easter the same weekend as my birthday so I go to see all of my family in that weekend as well. Good times all around! My cousins are the greatest.

I feel like I’m just bragging about my guy, but he is really awesome. He got me these beautiful yellow roses, and Kyle came to photobomb the photos I was taking of them. These two guys are my favorite! I don’t care what they say about yellow being the roses that represent friendship. To me they represent my favorite color and Tony knows that they’re my favorite. And Tony is my best friend anyways so it all works out 🙂 

A couple friends couldn’t make it to Punch Bowl Social so as more last minute surprise the following weekend, Tony arranged for us all to get together at the speakeasy behind Burgers and Bottles in Eagan. It’s an unassuming little restaurant in a strip mall that has an incredible secret bar with amazing cocktails!