{Pre-birthday partying at the Hart of Dixie wrap party}

I think it’s safe to say this was Tony’s best birthday ever; the big School of Rock news was the most epic gift of all time. Because we’d had to sit on it for a while before it was finally announced a few days prior his actual birthday (October 12), we’d been celebrating long and hard by the time the weekend rolled around. We’d planned to keep the party going Friday night and meet up with friends, but we were so tired that the idea of being social (or showering) was too much. I think it’s the same kind of happy exhaustion we’ll feel after our wedding, where the love and joy and excitement is just so overwhelming that you have to hit pause for a minute to take it in.

{Hiking off Mulholland Drive}

So, we kicked off the weekend with a sunset hike with our dogs at a spot I love just off Mulholland Drive, where it’s rarely crowded and you can see the ocean, and sometimes movie stars. It was so nice to finally have some time alone together, to process this insane news. We’ve both had so many close calls with our careers, it’s crazy wrapping our heads around the fact that this is a real job that is really happening. We toasted dreams coming true with giant take-out containers of Zankou Chicken and fell asleep on the sofa watching a Homeland marathon. It was perfect.

{Best view from the hike}

Saturday morning, I took a cake decorating class at Charm City Cakes West with one of my favorite girls around, Christie. She’s an incredible chef (see: Pardon My Crumbs), and we’ve been dying to take classes there. We decided to do it this past weekend, so I could kill two birds with one stone and leave with a birthday cake for Tony.

{Is this not the manliest birthday cake you’ve ever seen?}

It ended up being the perfect choice, because this Saturday’s class was on Art Deco/Great Gatsby-style cakes. We had an Old Hollywood/Art Deco-themed engagement party, so I love the style. But the real reason this class ended up being my favorite was because we got to use their edible spray paint machine to give the cake that edible sheen. It is my life’s goal to figure out how to register for one of those, so I can spray all of my food so it shimmers before I eat it. It was that fun. (Full disclosure: My cake had the same splotchy-bad-spray-tan look as my legs in high school. The awesome teacher, Rachel, fixed it for me. Thank you, Rachel!)

{Using the spray tan machine for cakes with Rachel}

{Fondant smashing}

Using the fondant-smashing machine (technical term?) was a close-second at the top of the fun scale. Christie knows me and my addictions well, and bought us two large Cake In A Jar’s to eat while we decorated the cakes we’d eat later.

{My happiness}

{Me and Christie, before those cakes were devoured}

While I believe in birthday months, Tony hates birthdays and never wants a big to-do made over him. We were planning to fly solo and eat at his favorite restaurant in town, Bludso’s BBQ, but at the last minute a few friends joined us (I think because Tony was worried we’d eat the cake by ourselves otherwise). It was a low-key night and we laughed the entire time with barbecue sauce dripping down our faces – as close to Tony’s fantasy birthday as you can get.

{My favorite pic from Tony’s birthday. Photo credit: Jon DeWalt}

Sunday (Tony’s actual birthday) also happened to be the wedding day of one of our best friends, Ben, so we got up early for Tony to open his present before driving to Santa Ynez. There’s no way to top the gift of being cast as the lead in the straight-to-series School of Rock TV show, so the closest I could come was a tent. That may not sound like much, but there’s meaning behind it. Tony loves camping. His favorite childhood memories usually involve being out in the wilderness somewhere with his dad. I, on the other hand, have only ever gone camping once. I was around 9 or 10, and when we pulled up to the campsite, legend has it I rolled down the window and asked the park ranger where the room service menu was. And, in those pre-iPad days, my brother and I almost killed the car battery, leaving the car running so we could watch Gremlins on the TV. I like vacations that include robes, spas and the ability to drink champagne by a pool. So, the greater gift is that we’ll now become “camping people.”

It made the birthday celebration even more special, being able to escape to Santa Ynez for a quick getaway. We stayed in Solvang, an adorable little town made famous by the movie Sideways and known for its danishes. Per the usual, we ate our way through the trip. Here we are at the wedding:

Ben’s wedding was gorgeous. He’s my old roommate, and we lived together at a time when both of us were going through a really difficult period in our lives. He was there for me, and is one of the funniest people with the biggest hearts I know, not to mention most supportive – he came to nearly all of my Sunday Company shows at The Groundlings, and never missed a new sketch. (Sidenote: If you are having a bad day, just ask Ben to do the dance from Footloose. It’s pure magic.) He was also living with me when I met Tony.

So, it was beautiful and emotional and just so wonderful to watch him get married, and see how far we’ve both come in our lives. You can also tell how much fun we had at the wedding by the fact that I’ve already shown you nearly all of the pictures we took. We were too busy shoveling barbecue and banana-chocolate chip-peanut butter cupcakes in our faces, and dancing.

{Are these not THE cutest welcome bags?? I am obsessed.}

We ended the night in bed, sweaty from three hours on the dance floor, eating all of the treats out of the perfectly-executed welcome bags while we watched Tony’s new favorite show, Fat Cops. (It’s basically the show Cops, but featuring cops who are fat. Genius.) Birthdays don’t get any better than that.