Happy Birthday Craig!

Happy Birthday to Craig, who turns 31 today!!!

I love you very much and hope you have a wonderful day today! We're excited to help you celebrate at Z-Tejas tonight.

(You love JoePa)

Last Weekend

Last weekend was a special weekend. A bunch of family and friends got together to take Shelsea out for her birthday. It was a fun time. I was even able to score the company car for a DD ride there and back. That may not seem like a big deal I guess, but the restaurant is about 40 mins away in Phoenix. (VIP - that's how we roll) The white Lincoln Towncar went all the way to south Gilbert first to pick up the birthday girl, stopped by our place and we headed off to Bacchanal's Greek restaurant. We've been going there for Shels' birthday for a number of years now. We have tried a couple new places along the way, but eventually we come back to Bacchanal's. Its always fun and this year did not disappoint. I can't say I've ever had the food there actually. We've always just gotten lots of appetizers and that always seems like enough. They've added a couple cool things to freshen up the entertainment. For one, the belly dancer that was there, the owner's wife, finally retired. Whew! - This is good news as she was getting slightly..um.. well... it's a good thing. Trust me. They also added a trio of girls who do the traditional greek dance. And of course, the owner always leads us all in the plate breaking and line dance around the restaurant and out to the parking lot. It's always fun there.

Happy Birthday to Shelsea, one of my favorite people! We hope the night was special for you! Her and her husband Mike are great friends, we love them dearly! :o) More photos from that night.

Another interesting side note about Bacchanal's is that it was the location and occasion of a first date for us. 5 years ago, I took Craig as my date to Shel's birthday event. He sat close to the dance floor which made him an obvious target for the belly dancer. She drug him out to the floor where apparently he performed a very unique interpretive dance. For me. However, I was in the restroom and didn't get to see it. I'm told its for the best, if I had seen it, we might not have had a second date! He won't do it again for me, he says he's retired and sits at the opposite end of the dance floor!

Another Birthday Girl!

Saturday night we went out for my birthday celebration. We had a wonderful, low-key night with a few fabulous friends. We started with dinner at Ra, I love sushi and there's a new one near our house. After that I thought it was time for all of us to go bowling! When's the last time you've been bowling - a long time ago right? So, we found some lanes that just opened recently and it seems to be the new(ish) thing? It was a bowling center that was really customized, they had couches and cocktail tables instead of the normal round booths to sit on,lights, music and a full bar! The bowling centers in Palmyra PA don't look like this? The only bummer was how long we waited - almost 2 hours!

Before Sat. night, and when the girls asked me what I wanted to do, I immediately said let's go bowling, guys against the girls! And we should get some kind of t-shirts or something. Well, the girls took this one comment and ran with it. That night they had gotten a 'bowling chicks' t-shirt for all of the girls! I was super excited. Somehow they managed to combine bowling with my favorite thing, chicks?

Let's be honest. These shirts are no one's style really, are they? But the fact that these friends of mine purchased them and had the spirit (of friendship) to wear them as a team all night for me is priceless. What a wonderful group of girls I have and I love them all. I appreciate this so much, it will be a birthday not soon forgotten.

More photos, here.

Nick's Birthday

In the midst of all the excitement of the last two weeks, Nick had his 9th birthday. Even though our party plans got postponed a bit because his two best friends were not available, we still had lots of celebrations. He went to an Arizona Diamondbacks game with his dad and then had cake with his grandparents on Sunday. Then when he got home on Sunday, we celebrated some more with a party, a few presents and cake, inlcuding a Stoudemire shirt from Craig's parents.

Gamma and Papa also celebrated his birthday last week when they came into town. They took him to his favorite indoor amusement place, Amazing Jakes and they played all day. Aunt Steph and Uncle Robert bought him the Shaquille O'Neal jersey he wanted too. So, even though his birthday was smooshed in the middle of a few crazy weeks, I think he still had special times.

The Big 3-0!

Finally, after so many years of waiting, Craig has turned 30. This is a glorious day! The jokes I've endured.. egh. So, please welcome the newest member to the club!

Friday night we celebrated with a few close friends at home, having dinner and birthday cake. The boys went home kind of bitter after getting smoked by the ladies during a game of Scene It. (so competitive?)

Saturday night, I took him to see the Phoenix Suns play the Houston Rockets. In the past, this has been our rivalry team but on this night the Suns led for the whole game by quite a lot. The Suns play an exciting game now that we have Shaq and of course our beloved Steve Nash. We had arena dogs, some cold beer and the Suns won - what a great night!

In times like this you really find out how good your camera is, or isn't. Anyway, this is the closest shot I could get of Shaq. One of his shoes is as big as my torso? He plays really hard, it's amazing that he's only a year older than me. I'm not sure I could run that hard for as long as he does, sometimes a couple nights in a row. Anyway, enough Shaq ramblings...

Happy 30th to Craig! March 24th is a lucky day!