I like hanging out with friends. Is that rocket science? Last night, a bunch of us met up in the Rahway/Lindon area for dinner at an Applebee’s to celebrate recent birthdays. Is it me, or is there a lot of junk on the walls?
Dinner @ Applebee's
Saturday night, we drove to Philadelphia for my sister’s surprise 30th birthday party. First we dropped off the kids to my sister-in-laws’ for the evening, then we went to pick up the delicious (and lactose-free) cake, and then drove to Philly. The plan was for everyone to meet up at The Mexican Post restaurant at 6:30pm, decorate and get ready. Robbie would bring Julie to meet with Nums and myself for a birthday/anniversary dinner. Julie kinda knew something was going on, but I think she was still surprised when 35 family and friends jumped out screaming at her.
It was a nice venue, and good dinner too. Robbie and his sister Kitty organized a trivia game around Julie’s favorite shows, movies, book series, candy bars, and there were prizes for each winning team. Each prize was related to one my sister’s favorites like Wawa coffee and stuff. My sister and I both like Star TrekGeneration, so I grabbed a tiny replica of the NCC-1701 Enterprise (refit of course!). The Enterprise is currently adorning my cubicle with my Capt. James Kirk figure.
The Enterprise now adorns my lowly cubicle.
Nerds! I’m behind on publishing photos, but I’ll post the pictures in the next few days.
I celebrated my 34th birthday this week. The day itself was nice. Beautiful weather, it was a quiet day in the office, and I even got a free cookie from my local Quizno’s. I had been discussing what to do in the evening. I didn’t want anything big, so I was initially suggesting a family dinner at home or maybe the local diner.
Julie & I
Sometime in the afternoon, I had a change of heart. It was my birthday, and the diner wasn’t feeling very celebratory. On second thought, I changed my mind that a nice dinner at Outback Steakhouse would be a better place. I thought it was my idea, but then I found out my wife had somehow used the Jedi mind trick on me.
While we’re waiting to be seated at Outback, my sister and her husband showed up. Turns out, surprise! My wife had decided on a birthday dinner at Outback days earlier and invited my sister and BIL too. I was very surprised. How did my wife pull the ol’ Jedi mind trick on me?
In regards to dinner, it was nice. Factoid: Thursday marked five years to the day that my wife and I had been to an Outback Steakhouse. The last time she and I had gone was to celebrate my 29th birthday in 2005 a month after Joshua was born [see the April 24 2005 entry.] I remember because our friend Lesh was nice enough to volunteer to watch Joshua for the evening, so that we could go have a nice dinner. Five years later, we celebrate my 34th birthday. Funny, I say. Funny.
This year, Lily turned two years old. Gosh, that went fast. She’s out of the toddler room, and has moved into the preschool prep classroom. It feels so recent that Josh himself was in that room. Time flies. Now Josh is in Kindergarten Prep, and Lily is drinking from a cup. In another year, I think she’ll be out of diapers. Two kids and no diapers? One can only dream.
On Saturday, we celebrated Lily’s second birthday with a party at Josh’s gym, which was the same place we celebrated his 3rd birthday (March 2008.) We invited her classmates from her class, and kids from among our circle of family and friends. As usual, a lot of the parents were very late with the RSVPs. What I found ironic was that we received an RSVP for a child we didn’t remember inviting, but we figured the more the merrier.
Lily's 2nd birthday party
The party went well. As usual, my sister and my BIL showed up early to (again) help us with running errands before a party, which included picking up the birthday cake and balloons today. If they didn’t keep swooping in to help us, I think we’d be even later for every major Ipe event. We arrived about 10 mins late to our own party, but since it was at a fully-staffed gym, parents and children were occupied with activities.
Everything went well, and Lily had a very good time. We had Papa John’s (again), because hey, you can’t beat that “$10 per pie with any toppings you want” deal. Nope, you can’t beat it. I think we’re officially done with parties for another year, which is a relief. I’m not a fan of throwing lavish birthday parties any more. Especially with young children, going overboard is pointless. The children themselves enjoy running around, eating their pizza, and drinking from their juice box. They don’t need much more than that.
So to bring this story to a close, remember that family that we didn’t invite, but left a voicemail that they would attend the party? Yeah, they didn’t show up to the party after all. We’re still confused about that one.
We celebrated Lily’s 1st birthday party in style this Saturday. For the first time in a long time, we got the entire immediate family together — both sets of grandparents, and both sets of aunts and uncles. We haven’t all been together since the baptism last August. We didn’t want it to be a large affair, focusing on just family. Folks started arriving at 2pm.
For my fellow food aficionados, here’s the menu. My wife put together pita to dip in iether roasted eggplant dip or hummus. For dinner, you could have fancy meatballs or swordfish kebabs, a zucchini medley, and couscous. Dessert was obviously the birthday cake.
Lily's birthday cake
Lily was the big winner in all this, as she was the center of attention, which is probably the best gift she could ever receive. 
My sister and her husband Rob organized and hosted a suprise 60th birthday party for Rob’s father. It went pretty well, and I think Pop was generally surprised. Folks, including my sister, cooked up all the food, and put together a great event. I took photos with our temporary disposable camera, so I’ll publish those when I get them developed.
