Birthday Fun: Tuesday (the real day)

My birthday started bright and early... 5:00AM! Michael wanted the entire day to be a surprise, so he woke me up, told me how to dress, then we left. We went to Park City and went on a hot air balloon ride! I have wanted to go on one of these for quite a while. (He made this reservation back in April... what a planner!)

So we all met at a hotel then they took us to where they launch the balloon. Here they are blowing air into the balloon:

It's almost ready:

Here we are in the basket. It can hold 12 passengers, plus the pilot. We only had 11, so Michael and I were in our little corner by ourselves:

The pilot told us that we would go up about 2-3 thousand feet... Here's Michael as we are going up:

Here's Jordanelle Reservoir:

This is the top of our balloon (it's a view of me looking up into the balloon):

We asked the pilot where we were going to land. His response, "on the ground." I didn't realize it, but you can't steer a balloon... it just goes where the wind takes it. We were very fortunate to have a very calm morning... we went up 6,700 feet! It was beautiful! Here is where we landed (a field just north of a local store):

It's official, we're Balloonatics!:

We went to Denny's after the hot air balloon ride. We noticed that I was able to get a free Grand Slam because it was my birthday!

We went to the one in Sandy, which is by where Niki works, so we called her and she met us for breakfast!

On our way back south we drove the Alpine Loop... it was awesome! Here are some pictures we took of the great colors:

For dinner we went to La Caille. When Michael bought my ring almost a year ago they gave us a gift certificate there. Michael decided to cash it in for my birthday. They have beautiful grounds and great food.

Here's the bread they bring out:

And our h'ordeuvres (I got Onion Soup, Michael got the crab with cocktail sauce):

Our salads:

Michael used both of his forks on his salad. I guess he didn't notice the one he had been using on his plate so he picked up the other one and didn't notice until after he had taken a bite... oops:

The main dish (10 oz New York steak, steamed veggies, and au gratin potatoes):

We decided to pass on the dessert because we were full, but they brought me out two chocolate dipped strawberries with this flame coming out of them and our waitress sang to me. We had a great time.

We didn't realize that sitting outside would mean you would have dinner guests. These peacocks were around out table the entire meal:

We walked around the grounds and got some more pictures after dinner:

Michael did a fantastic job at making this "golden" (I turned 28 on the 28th) birthday special.