Birfday

Today is my birthday. I am sure I have written about this before, probably last year, or maybe the year before... who knows, who remembers, who cares? Anyway, it started out with a bang. Anyone that knows me knows that I like to celebrate my birthday for roughly a period encompassing 5 days to one week. This year it started last Friday night. Kristen and I flew into StL and met up with my aunt and uncle and my mom. We left their company not too long after and met up with the Stewarts and the Weltigs. Since I wasn't able to make it into town during August, which is when Chris Wetig's birthday is (8/14), we decided we'd all get together for a drink and enjoy a joint celebration. We met up with them at Hot Shots in SoCo - Matt's choice, of course... haha! It was great! We caught up on what's been going on, BS'ed about old times and funny stuff, and sipped on some delicious beer selections, including Guinness - a must whenever I go drinking with Stewart.

The next day, Saturday, we woke up and ran some errands - yes, when we come to StL on "vacation" we are constantly running errands... haha! We also went to watch my nephew's first soccer game - more on him in a moment. We had tickets to the Cards/Cubs game that afternoon with Ray and Ali, so we met up with them and headed down there. We were supposed to watch Bierman throw out the first pitch, so we were in a rush, but even though we got into the stadium a full 25 minutes before the game started, we apparently missed Brad's shining moment by about two or three minutes. I hope there's a video out there, Brad, because I was really bummed that we missed that. So we had a few beers, a few laughs, and watched the Cards beat the Cubs 2-1 with a walk-off single... it was fantastic! We went over to Shannon's following the victory and were planning on having a wild night downtown... until it started raining. The rain and our hunger pangs prompted us to go to the CWE and meet up with a friend of mine and Ray's for some relaxation, drinks, and sushi for me!!! (remember, I'm still celebrating my birthday, here!). After that, we were pretty tapped out and despite Brad and Jimi's best efforts to get me back downtown, I was not driving and was feeling increasingly inebriated, so I went with the flow and we ended up at Frankie G's for a nightcap - and for everyone else who didn't eat sushi (Kristen) to get their grub on! We laughed and joked there with Weltig and Blandford and that was pretty much our night.

Sunday I shared my joint family birthday party with my now 6-year-old nephew, Nathan. Okay, so it was his party, but he was gracious enough to pretend to share it with me. It was a huge success and we had a lot of fun (I, breaking open the SpongeBob pinata) until we had to leave to catch our plane back home. The rest of the week up until my actual birthday was pretty uneventful for me, despite making some headway on bringing in money with this architecture business. This morning Kristen and I got up to go play tennis. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she doesn't have to be at work until later, so we had some time to sneak off and knock the ball around - it was awesome! I actually got a really good workout and I could see some development in Kristen's game! We went home and I enjoyed a self-prepared biscuits 'n' gravy breakfast.... delicious! I am sitting at the office now getting ready to eat pot stickers for lunch and just plain trying to keep things going. I am not sad that I'm here, because I have already had a very eventful birthday thus far (and I'm eating a lunch that I really enjoy).

Tonight I may meet up with some friends I met while playing on Dan-o's 16inch softball team earlier in the summer, when we first moved here. They're pretty cool people and will help me round out my celebrating by cheering alongside me as the Cubs lose to the Giants and the Cardinals clinch the NL Central (which they should have done in grander fashion last night!)... okay, save for the one Cardinal fan in the group besides me, they probably won't be helping me celebrate that...