CELEBRATING MY MOM'S BIRTHDAY

This past weekend we celebrated my mom's special day with a birthday extravaganza!

 I made my mom a badge to wear around so everyone would know it's her birthday.  Who knows?  Maybe it would get her some free cake.  tutorial coming soon.

Oh, what's that below?  A super awesome scratch off card to tell my mom where our first stop is?  Pretty cool, eh?  Find the easy tutorial here.  For some reason I tried using gold nail polish first.  I figured that it always chips off my nails, so how hard could it be to scratch off a card?  Pretty hard actually.  I think the key is covering the writing with the packing tape.  That way it's a slicker surface for the paint/soap combination to stick to.

If you have microscopes for eyes, you can make out that the card says "frozen cocktails at Snow & Company".  Snow and Company is a new place that opened up in the Crossroads District of Kansas City a few months ago.  I had heard good things, and I know my mom loves a good frozen drink, so that was our first stop.

We didn't know what to expect, but this place did not disappoint.  It's known for it's "artfully created frozen cocktails".  I'm a big frozen strawberry margarita girl, so I was excited to try the interesting flavor combinations.  Instead of committing to one flavor, you can get flights.  We decided to get the full flight, which means we got to try each flavor in a little 3oz glass.  They made sure to give us lots of straws so we could share each flavor and vote on our favorite.  We should have taken better notes when the waitress told us what each one was since there were a few that were the same whitish color.  My mom liked one of the elusive white ones, and I loved the Fashionista.  It tasted the most like a strawberry margarita:)

After imbibing in our delicious cocktails, it was time to let fate decide where we would have dinner, i.e. another scratch off card!

There were three options.  I put a funny one first, my top choice second, and another ok option last.  My mom knows me so well, though, and totally called it that she knew option B would be my top choice.  She ended up scratching off all the options, though, so we all could decide where to eat.  Option A was Hamburger Mary's.  They were having a cabaret show that night, so we decided to try there first.  All the tables were full, though, so it didn't work out.  My dad was surprisingly disappointed.  I know where we'll be going for his birthday in a few weeks:)

Option  B was Pizza Bella.  I thought this looked like a nice place, so we tried there next.  Both of these places were within walking distance, which worked out well.  When we got to Pizza Bella, though, it was a 30 minute wait (they don't take reservations).  It was also A LOT smaller than I expected, and all the tables were really close together.  I felt like I was failing.  Everyone was getting hungry (myself included), and I didn't know what to do to turn this night around.  Enter fate again.  Across the street there was another pizza place called The Art of Pizza.  I had overlooked it before, but now as we were all on the verge of freaking out in a hunger induced rage, I crossed the street and headed inside with zero expectations.  The inside was about what I had thought it would look like--really dark and cramped.  I asked if they had outdoor seating, though, and was pointed down a dimly lit hallway to a huge door that had a sign that said "push really hard".  My mom and I both pushed and were rewarded with our efforts with a garden oasis.  It was beautiful and there was no one else out there.  Score!  The pizza was fantastic and definitely reminded me of being in New York City again.  I chose to take all the credit for this find, but was just extremely lucky.

One of the best parts was that the owner came out and talked with us for a while.  We got to hear about how he used to travel all over the world as a photographer and then decided to open up various restaurants that culminated in this latest pizza place.  He also shared how is an avid gardener and even picked fresh herbs from his garden for us to smell.  Talk about customer service.

Across the street from the pizza place is the old TWA training center.  Do any of you remember TWA airlines?  They used to have a hub in Kansas City.  The building has been renovated by a design firm, but they put the TWA rocket on top of it to keep a link to the past.  I love that.  With so much changing all the time, it's nice to see elements of the past incorporated with the new.  It shows how everything is connected and never forgotten.

It was a great night celebrating the most important lady in my life.  While I try, I'll never be able to fully express to my mom how much I love her.  She is my rock and my most treasured confidant.  I don't know what I would do without her.  I love you so much, Mom!