Happy Birthday Joe!

Joe turned 25 this last week. Wow... A quarter of a century, huh? We did a lot of fun things to celebrate his birthday over the course of a week, and we got to enjoy lots of food!

First, last Wednesday (or Thursday, i don't remember), we went to Coldstone to get the free ice cream "like it" size creation for his birthday. They only asked 30 cents extra to upgrade to the next size, and that's what we did! We got French Vanilla ice cream with oreos, and it was perfect for our little family of three. (Yum, yum...) We didn't share a cup because Joe was feeling sick. Alden loved that he had his own little sample spoon and got to scoop up his own share. :D

On Friday, my brother Dohyup's in-laws came to America to visit his wife. We had a big family dinner at home with mom's best friend Jane Birch. We celebrated both Joe and Jane's birthday (August 15th) with good food and a cheese cake. Jane blew out the candles first - we only had 10 candles, so each of them had 5 candles - then we sang for Joe. Since he was feeling sick and didn't want to blow on the whole cake, Alden got to blew out the candles for Daddy instead. He blew them out one by one, except the last two, he was able to get both of them at the same time (he's increasing his lung capacity much this summer from hours of blowing out candles, blowing bubbles outside, and blowing bubbles in his drink).

On Saturday, my mom bought us Brick Oven pizza (One of Joe's favorites) for dinner. We brought them home and enjoyed them very much (even till next day for lunch). We got Alfredo Chicken and Garlic Chicken pizza, and Alden loved them a  lot too!

On Sunday, we were invited to dinner at our friends house, Cody and Kyra's. They made wonderful taco soup with corn bread, and Joe got to play Eagle Eye on nintendo with Cody and me. Alden had his own controller and had fun watching (although he's really confused about the whole controllers-having-wires-attached-to-them concept). Joe was especially excited because he had been telling me about him playing the game in junior/high school just the day before.

On joe's actual birthday, Yearim, my little sister, made Joe a cake, and I made shrimp/italian sausage pasta for lunch. Joe came home for lunch, and we got to enjoy lunch together. :D

This is the cake Yearim made. It's plain yellow cake (Joe's favorite!) and Mario!!

Alden realized that those white powdery stuff on the cake tastes really good. He started digging in the cake even before we blew the candles and stuff. lol.

Then on Wednesday, we went to Tucanos for lunch with Cody and Kyra. Tucanos gives you a buy-one-get-one-free-meal coupon for your birthday, so we get to go to Tucanos twice a year (it's a little over priced otherwise). Joe loves all the food there, and my favorite is garlic sirloin and barbeque chicken. Alden, for the first time in a while, loved the food and ate a lot of fruits and meat. His favorite was BBQ chicken, and he kept asking for more. Since he's been obsessed about using tools (wrench, chopsticks, tongs, etc.), he loved that they had tongs there to grab the meat. He used them to feed me and himself fruit I cut up for him. :D

Sorry I didn't have more pictures, but it was a great birthday. We had a lot of fun, not just on his birthday, but got to enjoy Joe turning 25 for the whole week! :D We can't wait till Alden's birthday comes, when he will get to enjoy his own cake and blow out candles on his cake (and open presents... :o).