birthday bash, part 2

My actual birthday started out with us at church. Normally we attend both morning services, spending the first service in the cry room with our kids and the second service in our Sunday School class (sometimes with the kids, sometimes without).

We've chosen the cry room option rather than sending the kids off to the nursery & Sunday School because we want to establish the tradition of worshiping as a family. It's not that church-going should only be a tradition. The world is full of people who attend church because they've always done so, or because it's just tradition, or because they feel guilty if they don't.

My wife and I, like most of those reading this blog, attend church because we love our Savior and His people. But one way we can establish the fact that Christ is the head of our home is by openly prizing Him before the kids. And church is a great opportunity to do this. Some people have suggested that our children may be too young to sit through a church service. I disagree. We have been working on training the kids to sit still and quietly listen to what is said, and we have seen great progress. We try to keep a level head about it because after all, 3 hours is a long time for toddlers to sit still. That said, we believe that what we are doing is important and worthwhile so we try to sit together for at least one service every week.

Anyway, because of our exhausting day on Saturday, we were not able to go to both services. Let me tell you—the cry room during second service is a whole 'nother ballgame. Wow... just, wow. When the service started, we were the only ones in the room. The TV was blasting so I turned down the volume just a bit. As the morning went on, I started to regret that decision more and more. It was so noisy in there. Granted, it is a cry room and you can't expect it to be like a library. But wow. What a circus.

Later that afternoon, Andrea's parents came to our place and watched the kids so we could go out for my birthday. Andrea kept the details a secret, directing my driving in vague generalities. All she told me was take the 210E and exit at Lake Ave. We drove past the area that less than 24 hours later would be full of flames. Interesting timing in that regard.

When Andrea said turn left off the freeway, my first thought was The Hat. I've mentioned on more than one occasion that we should go to The Hat some day.

I happened to guess correctly. But what I was not expecting was that this was just the first stop of many.

Andrea's plan involved picking items of food that I liked and then researching to find out the area's best offerings. We were at The Hat to get onion rings, and they were really good. I don't know if they were the best I've ever had, but they were really good. They were really yeasty, which I liked and Andrea didn't. There sure were a lot of them, too. I'd estimate about 3 onions worth of rings inside that brown paper bag. I knew we had more stops to make so I paced myself accordingly. We ate about a third of the rings and then headed out with the leftovers in tow.

The next stop was Fredo's Phillys for Philly Cheesesteaks. Fredo's was a little hole in the wall place, which is usually a good sign. Andrea got a regular Philly (meat, onions, cheese) and I got a Philly Hoagie. I know it's kind of "wrong" to mess up a Philly by adding the cold lettuce and tomatoes, but I happen to like the variety. I topped it off with a Hank's Root Beer, which was excellent.

The sandwiches were really interesting because the meat was sliced a little thicker than every other cheesesteak I've had. This imparted more of a meaty flavor than I'm used to. On just about every other example I've had, the cheese flavor tends to overpower the meat flavor. Make no mistake—Fredo's Phillys still oozed cheese all over the place, but the meat flavor was still quite distinct. About a third of the way into the sandwich, I really started to hit a wall. I managed to eat three-fourths of the sandwich before calling it quits. I could have continued if I really wanted to, but I knew that dessert was coming.

And come it did. We headed to Old Town Pasadena to a place called 21 Choices. It is pretty much the frozen yogurt equivalent of places like Maggie Moo's, Marble Slab, and Cold Stone. Except it's much, much more. They mix their own yogurt flavors daily and have a ridiculous amount of mix ins available, everything from fresh fruit to candy to cereal to cookies... you name it and they've probably got it. And to top it all off (no pun intended), the service was excellent. Our server was very helpful and friendly. After much deliberation, Andrea decided on Snickers yogurt with Twix. I settled on Mayan Chocolate with Circus Animal Cookies. Meanwhile the guy in line behind us was having trouble deciding what flavor of yogurt to get. The server said, "Let me get you some samples!" She came back with a spoonful of every single flavor. Overkill, yes, but the manner in which it was done exuded warmth and friendliness. I would definitely go back to 21 choices again. Somehow I managed to eat the whole thing despite my full stomach. Then again, it was really good, and I do like frozen yogurt.

It was nice to spend a few hours with my bride and not have the kids along. We ended up talking about them quite a bit, though. It was nice to be able to walk and hold my wife's hand instead of my children's hands.

Random side note: on Sunday morning as we walked across the church campus, Ava was holding Andrea's hand. Andrea was holding my hand. I was holding Trevor's hand. And I felt really goofy.

But yeah, it was nice to get away for a few hours and just relax together.

We drove back home and talked with Andrea's parents for a little while. Then they went home and we watched the prior week's episode of The Office.

Then on Monday night, we went out for dessert again. Andrea's original plan was to have Monday night's dessert after 21 Choices on Sunday night, but I'm glad she decided not to do that. So Monday night we went to Dippin' Dots. Once Trevor figured out that the dots were indeed ice cream, he enjoyed it. He got a Watermelon Ice; Andrea split a Strawberry Ice with Ava; I got Caramel Brownie Sundae. Tasty, but nothing compared to the previous night. Still fun, though.

That just about wraps up my birthday happenings. On Tuesday night, I bought something with some birthday money I received, and last night I came home to find that my new (to me) iPod had arrived safe and sound. The Live dot com cashback deal was at 30%. Birthday money plus a refurbished & recently discontinued model plus 30% cashback (in 60 days) meant that I got a new iPod with plenty of storage and I still have a couple bucks leftover. And all for less than my old 4th generation iPod color cost (see below)*.

Win!

Getting it set up was kind of a nightmare: the iTunes update kept freezing, and then I discovered that the iPod was originally formatted for a Mac, and then the restorer kept freezing. But finally I got it working. The music files on my computer are kind of a mess right now. Actually, the files are more organized than ever, but iTunes can't find most of them because I've moved them all around. So I've only got about 2GB on the iPod at the moment, but what a good 2GB they are!

And let me tell you... gapless album playback makes it all worth it... every single penny. The flashy menus and new features are just "nifty gifties" but eliminating that split-second pause between tracks that are supposed to be linked together makes me smile.

* As far as I know, that is. My old 4th gen. iPod was a gift from my parents, but I think I remember them asking me if the price they were going to pay was fair.