PJs Birthday at Kennedy School
After my trip to Kennedy school in August I started looking for a good time to return with a larger group of people. That's when I came up with the idea of celebrating my brother PJ's birthday there. We don't do stuff for PJ's birthday often enough and it would be a great excuse to visit the location. :) So after a lot of planning and reminding everyone who needed time off got time off and those that didn't put the date in their calendars. :D The plan was to have dinner at 6:30. :)
I was up early for whatever reason and ready for the day by 8:30. I decided to take the opportunity and headed over to Burger King for Breakfast and high speed internet. My daughter and Danielle joined me for breakfast. They finished up within half an hour and wanted to head back home though. I stuck around though. I had a wonderfully serene time listening to music, playing on fb and watching the rain and traffic. :) I need to get a house with an atrium in it just so I can sit and enjoy the rain like that. :D
Around 11am I decided I had been there long enough and headed home. There wasn't much to do at home but get back online. Since I had already done everything I could think of I was kind of bored. Around 1:30 I decided to just take a nap since there was still a lot of time left before we left and I had gotten up pretty early.
At 4:30 I woke up and decided it was time to start prodding people out the door. I knew it was going to be hard enough to get a table with 12 people at the courtyard restaurant but the later we left the longer the wait was likely to be. I tried to get people out the door by 5pm but that prove nearly impossible. I finally got Erik and Darren to leave around 5pm. Bo and I left around 5:30 with PJ and Michelle.
The ride down was uneventful. I did let PJ hook up his PSP to the car speakers so he could listen to the game through the car. :D The chocobo sounds cracked me up. ^_^ Michelle listened to her MP3 player quietly for the ride down.
We pulled up to the restaurant around 6:35. I had planned to park in back but guessed that it wouldn't be as easy this time around to find a parking spot in back. So I also scouted out a parking spot on the road out front if needed. As expected the back lot was full with numerous people trying to park. So I headed out to park out front. What I didn't count on were the number of people parked on the street around the block. It made for one direction driving and there was no way to get around if a car was coming the other direction! Thankfully I didn't encounter any trouble that I couldn't get out of but people behind me did and it made me wonder what the plan was for that area.
I found my way back to 33rd and we still had to go down the street a bit and turn around to get back to the parking spot I eyed earlier. I guessed that it wasn't taken because people were more interested in finding a spot in the parking lot. Because of this we only parked a short way down from the main entrance. :D
Just as we got out of the car and were walking in I got a text from Darrin telling me that the wait would be 1 to 2 hours long. That was exactly what I expected and why I hoped we would get there earlier. Apparently Erik and Darren stopped to pick up Bryce and Dustin on the way in so they only arrived shortly before us. As we were walking in I got a phone call and, thinking it was Darren calling with the same information, I hung up before noticing it was Ingrid calling. I called her right back and she told me they were on their way. And asked for an address in to put in the phone GPS. I told her that was perfect because we wouldn't be seated until after they got there anyway so they would miss most of the wait. :)
When I got to where Erik and the others were waiting I got the quick message from Darren not to tell Bryce about the wait time. Apparently he is not as patient as the rest of us. So Erik distracted him for most of the night and that kept his attention off the time. Besides I knew there would be plenty to see and do that we didn't need to sit by the restaurant waiting. We had a pager that would work anywhere in the building. :)
Bo decided he just wanted to sit there on the internet so I left the pager with him and headed off to show Erik, PJ and Michelle things like the restrooms in the center hallway, the paintings and the boiler room bar. :) PJ and Michelle followed for a while but eventually stuck around in the hallway taking pictures. :) I would have said something but they were having fun enjoying the night the way they wanted to and who was I to say that was wrong. :)
Around 7:45 Ingrid, Caleb, Karen and Brandon arrived. I showed them around while we waited. Ingrid, Caleb and I went to the gift shop for a bit. This is where I found PJ and Michelle. I asked PJ if there was something he wanted from the place and I would get it for him for his birthday. He looked around a bit and picked out a music box. :D It was a pretty neat and unique gift. :)
Ingrid looked around the gift shop and for a while I thought she was going to pick out the exact same thing I got her for Christmas. O_o Thankfully she didn't though. :)
I found that Ingrid, Caleb and Brandon had headed into the Honors bar for drinks to hold them over while we waited for seating. I decided to skip that line and headed to the Theater bar. The nice thing about this place is that you can buy a drink of any kind at any of the 6 bars and carry it around. :) So I got a diet rite at the Theater bar to keep with me all night. I was going to get something else but the Theater bar is limited to what they can make there. That was fine I could wait until dinner to get more.
Around 8pm Bryce started to catch on that something was up with the wait time so I quickly went in to see where they were with getting at able ready. Thankfully a table was just being cleaned off for us and it would be about 15 minutes before they could have it ready. I went back to the group with this information.
At 8:15 we were finally seated. :) Erik and Darren sat at one end while PJ and Michelle sat at the other. I sat in the middle with Bo to my right and Ingrid across from me. Erik brought out his older camera for the evening and I took charge of getting pictures. ^_^ We got quite a few really great pictures. :)
As we ordered drinks for dinner I planned to order something from the bar. I was worried about Ingrid overhearing me because she always gets too excited about that stuff so I made sure to order it when the waitress was behind me and out of Ingrid's general ear shot. :) I figured she would find out when the drink came to the table anyway but I wanted to keep the tone down as long as possible.
During dinner I got in a lot of conversation with Dustin, which was interesting. He's pretty nice and fun to talk with. Caleb noticed that Bo wasn't having much fun (as he situated himself with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face) and started talking to him about Transformers and other anime type things. I was going to join in but Ingrid stopped me and I realized that it was a good thing. Bo needed someone to connect with here rather than keep him on the sidelines. I didn't have anything I needed to say anyway. :)
I didn't want a repeat of last time so I got just a basic burger for dinner and a Hummus plate to share with Ingrid. My Long Island Iced Tea arrived with the Hummus plate and to my surprise Ingrid didn't seem to notice. I think that was in part because I still had the diet soda and was drinking from that as well. My take on this Long Island was that it wasn't as good as the last one I had, it wasn't bad either so I drank it. I even gave the cherry stem to Ingrid who still didn't seem to notice where it came from! Hehe.
I got a few group pictures of the table and the waiter asked if I wanted him to get a group picture so I could be in it too. I said sure and took a seat at the table for the picture. He actually took two of them an in the second on I got in to the act and did some wild hand pose. :)
Caleb got this idea somewhere in the middle of dinner that he wanted to go to a strip bar afterwards to "support single mothers". 9_9 Ingrid was up for it and so was Karen but I wasn't interested. I don't know where they were going to go but they could wait until we were all done with dinner.
Caleb finished most of his dinner and left the plate on the table to sneak outside and have a smoke with Ingrid. When they came back the waitress had taken his plate (which I hadn't noticed her even come by). Amusingly she had only put it on a table behind us so Caleb took the plate back. Hehe.
I got my bill and found that it was only $35 dollars and I had offered to cover Michelle's portion of dinner. [Erik covered PJs dinner and Karen got PJ's drinks] Even with the Long Island Iced Tea! So I got a piece of cheesecake for desert. I also made jokes that I should take the bill back to the waitress and ask for a larger bill because I didn't think it was high enough. Hehe.
Around 9:30 we finished up dinner. Karen changed her mind about the strip club and just wanted to go home so that put a damper on Caleb's strip club idea. It started to make people at that end of the table irritable so I just suggested everyone move out. I still had half of my drink left so I tried to drink it up as fast as I could worrying only a little about any effects it might had since it was really watered down by now. Interestingly enough I didn't feel much change at all and no one seemed to think I had drank at all so I guess it didn't have much effect on me.
Erik and Darren wanted to head out so they could take Bryce and Dustin back home. I wanted to stop and show them the movie posters painted in chalk in the theater bar area before they left. I also took the opportunity to get another refill on my diet rite.
Even though Ingrid and Caleb wanted to get going, Karen wanted to buy PJ another drink from the Boiler Room Bar. So we headed over there to look around. PJ hadn't seen it yet because he and Michelle were busy taking pictures. Karen wanted to get him a Flaming Dr Pepper but they didn't make that drink so she got him a Lemon Drop instead. After that Karen headed out. Ingrid was outside waiting for Karen to drive home so they needed to get going.
After looking around a bit and waiting for PJ to finish his drink we headed out ourselves. PJ and Michelle seemed to have a good time. I took the passenger's seat on the way home as Bo drove. I didn't feel as tired as I thought I might so I was awake enough to direct Bo back to the freeway. From there I dosed off for the duration of the ride home.
We dropped off PJ and Michelle at Ingrid's when we got back. We arrived just at Ingrid, Caleb, Karen and Brandon were going to go out somewhere. I didn't find out what they were doing since I wasn't going to go with them anyway. We just headed home and I went to bed as soon as I could.
It was a really fun night. There was a little drama when Erik ignored Karen and she got upset with him for it. I had hoped people could keep it together for the night but at least it didn't ruin anything and the two were kept separate in the interest of a peaceful evening, which did happen. :) I am glad we were able to give PJ a really nice birthday like this. He even loved his gifts that we handed out at dinner. ^_^ We will have to keep up the tradition and go other places next year. ^_^
I was up early for whatever reason and ready for the day by 8:30. I decided to take the opportunity and headed over to Burger King for Breakfast and high speed internet. My daughter and Danielle joined me for breakfast. They finished up within half an hour and wanted to head back home though. I stuck around though. I had a wonderfully serene time listening to music, playing on fb and watching the rain and traffic. :) I need to get a house with an atrium in it just so I can sit and enjoy the rain like that. :D
Around 11am I decided I had been there long enough and headed home. There wasn't much to do at home but get back online. Since I had already done everything I could think of I was kind of bored. Around 1:30 I decided to just take a nap since there was still a lot of time left before we left and I had gotten up pretty early.
At 4:30 I woke up and decided it was time to start prodding people out the door. I knew it was going to be hard enough to get a table with 12 people at the courtyard restaurant but the later we left the longer the wait was likely to be. I tried to get people out the door by 5pm but that prove nearly impossible. I finally got Erik and Darren to leave around 5pm. Bo and I left around 5:30 with PJ and Michelle.
The ride down was uneventful. I did let PJ hook up his PSP to the car speakers so he could listen to the game through the car. :D The chocobo sounds cracked me up. ^_^ Michelle listened to her MP3 player quietly for the ride down.
We pulled up to the restaurant around 6:35. I had planned to park in back but guessed that it wouldn't be as easy this time around to find a parking spot in back. So I also scouted out a parking spot on the road out front if needed. As expected the back lot was full with numerous people trying to park. So I headed out to park out front. What I didn't count on were the number of people parked on the street around the block. It made for one direction driving and there was no way to get around if a car was coming the other direction! Thankfully I didn't encounter any trouble that I couldn't get out of but people behind me did and it made me wonder what the plan was for that area.
I found my way back to 33rd and we still had to go down the street a bit and turn around to get back to the parking spot I eyed earlier. I guessed that it wasn't taken because people were more interested in finding a spot in the parking lot. Because of this we only parked a short way down from the main entrance. :D
Just as we got out of the car and were walking in I got a text from Darrin telling me that the wait would be 1 to 2 hours long. That was exactly what I expected and why I hoped we would get there earlier. Apparently Erik and Darren stopped to pick up Bryce and Dustin on the way in so they only arrived shortly before us. As we were walking in I got a phone call and, thinking it was Darren calling with the same information, I hung up before noticing it was Ingrid calling. I called her right back and she told me they were on their way. And asked for an address in to put in the phone GPS. I told her that was perfect because we wouldn't be seated until after they got there anyway so they would miss most of the wait. :)
When I got to where Erik and the others were waiting I got the quick message from Darren not to tell Bryce about the wait time. Apparently he is not as patient as the rest of us. So Erik distracted him for most of the night and that kept his attention off the time. Besides I knew there would be plenty to see and do that we didn't need to sit by the restaurant waiting. We had a pager that would work anywhere in the building. :)
Bo decided he just wanted to sit there on the internet so I left the pager with him and headed off to show Erik, PJ and Michelle things like the restrooms in the center hallway, the paintings and the boiler room bar. :) PJ and Michelle followed for a while but eventually stuck around in the hallway taking pictures. :) I would have said something but they were having fun enjoying the night the way they wanted to and who was I to say that was wrong. :)
Around 7:45 Ingrid, Caleb, Karen and Brandon arrived. I showed them around while we waited. Ingrid, Caleb and I went to the gift shop for a bit. This is where I found PJ and Michelle. I asked PJ if there was something he wanted from the place and I would get it for him for his birthday. He looked around a bit and picked out a music box. :D It was a pretty neat and unique gift. :)
Ingrid looked around the gift shop and for a while I thought she was going to pick out the exact same thing I got her for Christmas. O_o Thankfully she didn't though. :)
I found that Ingrid, Caleb and Brandon had headed into the Honors bar for drinks to hold them over while we waited for seating. I decided to skip that line and headed to the Theater bar. The nice thing about this place is that you can buy a drink of any kind at any of the 6 bars and carry it around. :) So I got a diet rite at the Theater bar to keep with me all night. I was going to get something else but the Theater bar is limited to what they can make there. That was fine I could wait until dinner to get more.
Around 8pm Bryce started to catch on that something was up with the wait time so I quickly went in to see where they were with getting at able ready. Thankfully a table was just being cleaned off for us and it would be about 15 minutes before they could have it ready. I went back to the group with this information.
At 8:15 we were finally seated. :) Erik and Darren sat at one end while PJ and Michelle sat at the other. I sat in the middle with Bo to my right and Ingrid across from me. Erik brought out his older camera for the evening and I took charge of getting pictures. ^_^ We got quite a few really great pictures. :)
As we ordered drinks for dinner I planned to order something from the bar. I was worried about Ingrid overhearing me because she always gets too excited about that stuff so I made sure to order it when the waitress was behind me and out of Ingrid's general ear shot. :) I figured she would find out when the drink came to the table anyway but I wanted to keep the tone down as long as possible.
During dinner I got in a lot of conversation with Dustin, which was interesting. He's pretty nice and fun to talk with. Caleb noticed that Bo wasn't having much fun (as he situated himself with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face) and started talking to him about Transformers and other anime type things. I was going to join in but Ingrid stopped me and I realized that it was a good thing. Bo needed someone to connect with here rather than keep him on the sidelines. I didn't have anything I needed to say anyway. :)
I didn't want a repeat of last time so I got just a basic burger for dinner and a Hummus plate to share with Ingrid. My Long Island Iced Tea arrived with the Hummus plate and to my surprise Ingrid didn't seem to notice. I think that was in part because I still had the diet soda and was drinking from that as well. My take on this Long Island was that it wasn't as good as the last one I had, it wasn't bad either so I drank it. I even gave the cherry stem to Ingrid who still didn't seem to notice where it came from! Hehe.
I got a few group pictures of the table and the waiter asked if I wanted him to get a group picture so I could be in it too. I said sure and took a seat at the table for the picture. He actually took two of them an in the second on I got in to the act and did some wild hand pose. :)
Caleb got this idea somewhere in the middle of dinner that he wanted to go to a strip bar afterwards to "support single mothers". 9_9 Ingrid was up for it and so was Karen but I wasn't interested. I don't know where they were going to go but they could wait until we were all done with dinner.
Caleb finished most of his dinner and left the plate on the table to sneak outside and have a smoke with Ingrid. When they came back the waitress had taken his plate (which I hadn't noticed her even come by). Amusingly she had only put it on a table behind us so Caleb took the plate back. Hehe.
I got my bill and found that it was only $35 dollars and I had offered to cover Michelle's portion of dinner. [Erik covered PJs dinner and Karen got PJ's drinks] Even with the Long Island Iced Tea! So I got a piece of cheesecake for desert. I also made jokes that I should take the bill back to the waitress and ask for a larger bill because I didn't think it was high enough. Hehe.
Around 9:30 we finished up dinner. Karen changed her mind about the strip club and just wanted to go home so that put a damper on Caleb's strip club idea. It started to make people at that end of the table irritable so I just suggested everyone move out. I still had half of my drink left so I tried to drink it up as fast as I could worrying only a little about any effects it might had since it was really watered down by now. Interestingly enough I didn't feel much change at all and no one seemed to think I had drank at all so I guess it didn't have much effect on me.
Erik and Darren wanted to head out so they could take Bryce and Dustin back home. I wanted to stop and show them the movie posters painted in chalk in the theater bar area before they left. I also took the opportunity to get another refill on my diet rite.
Even though Ingrid and Caleb wanted to get going, Karen wanted to buy PJ another drink from the Boiler Room Bar. So we headed over there to look around. PJ hadn't seen it yet because he and Michelle were busy taking pictures. Karen wanted to get him a Flaming Dr Pepper but they didn't make that drink so she got him a Lemon Drop instead. After that Karen headed out. Ingrid was outside waiting for Karen to drive home so they needed to get going.
After looking around a bit and waiting for PJ to finish his drink we headed out ourselves. PJ and Michelle seemed to have a good time. I took the passenger's seat on the way home as Bo drove. I didn't feel as tired as I thought I might so I was awake enough to direct Bo back to the freeway. From there I dosed off for the duration of the ride home.
We dropped off PJ and Michelle at Ingrid's when we got back. We arrived just at Ingrid, Caleb, Karen and Brandon were going to go out somewhere. I didn't find out what they were doing since I wasn't going to go with them anyway. We just headed home and I went to bed as soon as I could.
It was a really fun night. There was a little drama when Erik ignored Karen and she got upset with him for it. I had hoped people could keep it together for the night but at least it didn't ruin anything and the two were kept separate in the interest of a peaceful evening, which did happen. :) I am glad we were able to give PJ a really nice birthday like this. He even loved his gifts that we handed out at dinner. ^_^ We will have to keep up the tradition and go other places next year. ^_^