A Birthday Of Epic Proportions

Well, not really. Though we did all end up completely exhausted! Hubby's birthday was yesterday and a birthday dinner wasn't really on the cards. We would be at the zoo all day on his actual birthday then had family coming for birthday cake when we arrived home so dinner was more likely to be tasted sandwiches (in reality it turned out to be tinned soup and toast!). So I thought I'd do something a bit nice the night before.

On Saturday we had the following conversation:
Me: (with freezer door open) Hubby, what do you want for dinner tonight?
Him: Marinara.
Me: (pulling a face of extreme distaste, and with a pack of frozen chicken thighs in my hand) So... chicken then?
Him: (pulling a face back at me) Chilli Mussels .
Me: Right. So chicken then.
Him: Why do you even ask me? You never make what I want anyway... rant... rant... rant. (I kinda tuned out at then point)
Me: Well, honey you know I don't like marinara and the kids probably wouldn't so I'm sorry but it doesn't tend to end up on the weekly menu. Also it smells bad and I don't like cooking stuff that smells bad (yeah, the orignal seafood hater is married to the man who likes to catch and eat fish. Wrong on so many levels. But we make it work LOL).

Anyway, then I felt all guilty about never making food that he likes (because apparently all the lovely things I cook? He doesn't like?? I don't think so!) and decided to up the brave and make his damn chilli mussels. Especially since I actually do like chilli mussels. I think because the chilli bit disguises the mussel bit.

And so I did. They worked out okay - I cobbled together a few different recipes I found and despite them not being quite 'chilli' enough he was very happy and we called that his birthday dinner. I am going to make them again and play around with the recipe a bit until I get the end result we're after. Then I'll share it with you. But for now... this is what they looked like when I remembered to grab the camera (after we'd eaten about half of them!).

Offspring #1 lived up to his reputation and happily tried them, declared them to be fabulous and tried to eat the rest of them while Offspring #2 lived up to her reputation and declared them to be "ewwww" just from looking at them. Although I messed up the timing somewhat we treated the mussels as the entree and I made Crunchy Parmesan Crumbed Chicken with steamed vegies for main so everyone was kept happy.

Hubby chose his own birthday present, collected it, assembled it, used it and approved it. Then we wrapped it. I wonder if you can guess what it is?

And then we spent his actual birthday at the zoo. Normally we hire a buggy to cart the kids and all our stuff but we decided that #1 probably wouldn't fit in the buggy anymore and #2 was big enough to walk it. Great decision as there were no buggies left when we arrived. We didn't cover the whole zoo but we saw all our favourites - from the giraffes for #2, to the crocodile for Hubby and we found the new-since-we-were-there-last penguin area where the penguins were busy racing up and down their tank which had the kids enthralled and in fits of laughter. We took a few pics of our fave's but didn't go overboard.

And then, on the walk back to the car at about the point both kids were too tired to take one more step we found a playground. The rejuvenating powers of a playground should never be underestimated!

For a low-key kind of birthday I think he did okay!