Birthday snapshots

Last night we decided to drive out to the suburbs to go to the one and only Joe's Crab Shack in the greater Chicago are for their Cajun Crab Boil.  However, with the weather as it was, (rainy rainy rainy,) google had predicted it would take us over an hour to even get there.  The Mister proposed we just make it at home.  After looking up how its made I couldn't believe how easy it actually was.  You literally just boil everything.  So off to the grocery we went and about an hour later we had the most delicious meal one could ever imagine.  Here are a few snapshots of the night.

*If you are a novice at eating/making seafood boils please be warned.  We have enough leftovers to feed a small army.  2 lbs of crab and 1 lb of shrimp doesn't sound like a lot of food.  It's a boatload.

 Here the Mister is "popping" open the first bottle of wine, only to find it was a twist off......

The delicious vegetables....

Taking all the goodness out of the pots....

 At this point we tried calling all the friends we could to see if anybody wanted to come over for a last minute meal.  The amount of food we made was beyond ridiculous. 

One of the best part of this meal?  the 29 cups of stock that I now get to use to flavour all sorts of delicious dinners in the future!

I wouldn't be a birthday without the cake, right?  

This is a triple chocolate mousse layered cake complete with white and dark chocolate shavings.  

Perfection!