Snow Day in Chino Hills! and Mommy turns 30!

This past weekend was quite a fun one indeed! The week before we had been planning a dinner for my 30th bday, but little did I know, my sister Cindy and Howard were scheming for Cindy to fly down to join our celebration party. On Friday night, Howard went to Babies R Us to get a gift card for Kathy and Will's shower, and I gave Avery a bath. An hour later i was wondering what was taking Howard so long, and finally he came back, but the person who stuck her head into the house was not my husband, it was my sister. Kind of a surreal moment, when you see something that doesn't make sense in your mind. I was pretty confused, and then, JOY! YAAYY!! She made me cry a little :(

The next morning was Snow Day! I layered Avery up expecting it to be cold, but once we got there i realized how wrong I was. It was around 75 degree weather with the bright sun beaming down. Gorgeous day, and quickly got hot. The City had arranged a little festival with a big kid sledding slide, a little kid slide, and a big and little kid separated snow playgrounds along with food vendors, fun games, and a live DJ. One thing I love about Chino Hills is, whenever they do a city-wide event with kid stuff, they always take care to separate the toddlers from the bigger kids so they don't get trampled. 

Avery, having never seen snow, was not particularly thrilled about it. She doesn't like inflatables, doesn't like sand cuz it gets everywhere, and so she's definitely not liking snow when she walks on it and it gives out underneath her.

What is all this white stuff! I don't like it!

Cindy held up some snow for her to check out, but she was pretty skeptical of what it was. We went with our neighbors John, Elaine and Kate. Kate LOVED the snow, shoveling loads of it and throwing it up in the air, sitting down on it, decapitating snowmen, it was great. Avery on the other hand, just stood there, unmoving and suspicious.

Next, we went to check out the smaller sledding slide. Avery was pretty perplexed and intrigued watching the kids sliding down the hill, so we took her up a few times.

She just didn't move, no expression on her face except for this one:

WAAHOOAAA!!! hee hee hee

Her face is still frozen in terror as we pull to a stop. Ah, the look on her face is priceless! But right after we slid down, she would get up and point upward saying "Slide! Slide!" wanting to go again. Our little adrenaline junkie!

Taking a breather under a tree. It was a warm day!

And then, one more time down the hill!!

HAHAHAHA I can stare at her little terrified face all day, makes me laugh!! I swear she loves it, because when she gets down, she always wants more! too much fun.

Then after her nap, we dropped her off at Grandma and Grandpa Shih's house, where they were just as shocked to see my sister, and then left for dinner at Palate in Glendale for my 30th Birthday party. Woohoo!!

You can't go wrong when you've got Chris at the head of the table. He wisely suggested that we go one of each dish on the menu as it was a wine and tapas kind of joint. You seldom think to do that, but it makes so much sense because then you can try out everything, especially if you have a big group.

Our first encounter with "sweetbread". The thalymus part of a lamb or calf, which Katherine explained that its in front of the heart, near the pancreas or something. There's a reason I am not a doctor. It has the firmness of dark meat chicken, and the taste of foie gras. Brilliant! I also decided to share my bottle of 2004 BV De Latour with everyone, which ended the evening perfectly, I must say. Kevin, you definitely missed out.

Me and Howard, celebrating another birthday together. Actually this is the 14th birthday of mine that we spent together. The first birthday was my sweet 16th party, when he came with a giant teddy bear and made me blush. We weren't so different back then, you know. Maybe a little slimmer, and more naive, with more pimples. But the years have been good to us indeed!

Funny now, looking at pictures of us together, I think of when we were little college freshmen, some of us crying for our mommies (ahem Jacq. And I'd venture to guess Katherine, probably. hehe), some of us forgot our damn comforter at home and had to borrow her roommate Tomi's blanket for a week (yours truly), and now we're mommies and professionals and running our own gigs. Truly amazing that we have been friends for so long and still remain so close. And my sister, the naive, immature, couldn't sit still long enough to understand how to solve the Kumon math fraction problem even though I explained to her a zillion times, sister, she's like, an adult now. A real adult with a real job and real to-be-husband. Yeesh.

Somethings don't change though. For instance, I don't know Vatche the same number of years as I've know Jacq, but I'm pretty sure he's always had and always will have the chin-up pose in pictures as he has in this picture. haha. And Luis will always have unnaturally red lips making you believe he put on some lipstick. And Howard will turn beet red when he drinks. hehe

Thanks to Luis and Katherine for my birthday cake!

Here's to another 30 years. My wish is that I will continue to treasure my relationships with my friends, and that 30 years from now we'll all be celebrating our 60th birthdays, sharing good wine, dirty jokes and embarassing our adult children to our hearts content.