Movies + Menchie's + Party Animals = A Perfect 31st

Reminder: Today and tomorrow are your last chance to enter the Locavore Giveaway. Enter to win 2 tickets to a night of local food, wine and chocolate to benefit the National MS Society’s Ohio-Buckeye Chapter.

Later this week Scott and I hit the roads to see our families and attend the Baltimore Comic Con next weekend.

The only thing I dislike about going on vacation (besides missing events like Taste of the Browns when I’m out of town) is all of the prep work needed before we leave. The packing, catching up on projects, writing and scheduling blog posts for when I’m away.

Don’t get me wrong – it pays off in the end because I can go away with a little less on my mind. It’s just that I sometimes feel like I need a vacation for my vacation.

Fortunately, we took a little break this past weekend to celebrate my birthday and relax before the busy-ness really starts up this week.

Between work, the start of a sinus infection, and dealing with a jury summons (Happy birthday, Amanda! Your friend, Lorain County), Friday was a very long day. Fortunately, Scott convinced me to pull myself out of my funk and go to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo’s Date Night at the Zoovies.

As soon as we got to the Zoo, my spirits lifted. It was a perfect evening weather-wise. The sky was clear, it was warm enough when the sun was shining, and a light breeze when night fell.

We enjoyed a little bit of Burning River ale with some wraps, pork, zucchini and pepper sandwiches, and spicy beef empanadas. The Zoo had a winner with those, winning over even Scott who usually doesn’t like spicy food.

Before the evening’s film began, Scott and I visited the elephants, lions, koalas and kangaroos.

We had some real party animals for my birthday!

As the sun set, we took our seats on the lawn of the Zoo’s amphitheater and settled in for their showing of Back to the Future.

They put out an excellent spread of movie snacks — besides popcorn, they had pretzel sticks with cheese and a selection of other dipping sauces, as well as a table filled with all kinds of candy. I stocked up on Reese’s Pieces for my popcorn, along with a couple handfuls of Swedish Fish.

For as many times as I’ve seen Back to the Future, I always find something new to laugh at.

Spending my birthday on a date with this guy was a great way to welcome in 31:

Saturday started with a massage at Revelations Spa and a stop by Happy Dog. I couldn’t make up mind on my hot dog toppings – so I figured “Hey, it’s my birthday! I’ll have 2 hot dogs!”

Worth it!

On Saturday night we got together with a different group of party animals to see the third installment in the Blood and Ice Cream ‘Cornetto’ Trilogy.

As with most of my favorite movies, I can thank Scott for introducing me to Shaun of the Dead, and then Hot Fuzz.

Although not a thematic trilogy, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and this weekend’s The World’s End all featured director Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and have a special nod to different flavors of the Cornetto ice cream in them.

What Shaun of the Dead was to zombie movies and Hot Fuzz to buddy cop films, The World’s End is to alien-invasion apocalypse films. Seriously, it was perfect that this came out on my birthday.

We gathered a group of Blood and Ice Cream fans (and people who like me enough to go see it) and met up at Crocker Park. Because the movies feature ice cream, we headed to Menchie’s for a pre-movie frozen treat.

Surprisingly, most of us (including Scott and me) had never been to Menchie’s before. I think all of the toppings — especially the cereal ones — really took us by surprise. Pleasant surprise.

I was really happy with my Menchie’s creation – a combination of Irish mint frozen yogurt, coconut, white chocolate chips, caramel chocolate turtles and salted peanuts.

The movie exceeded all of my fangirl expectations. If you like any combination of British humor, bar crawls, aliens, robots, or the apocalypse, do yourself a favor and see it.

Afterwards I stayed up way too late and enjoyed a couple drinks at B-Spot. Do you like bourbon? I recommend trying their Midnight Manhattan.  I was a little leery about a Manhattan on draft, but it was WOW!

Sunday, it was back to reality. But that was enough to get me through the next few days and off on vacation. Let the countdown begin!

Disclosure: I was invited to attend Date Night at the Zoovies in exchange for hosting a giveaway. My opinions of the event are 100% my own.