Wonderful Family and Friends

As the Facebook updates poured in last night and today I was reminded of the wonderful family and friends who are a part of my life.  Friends that go all the way back to when we were growing up in Tulare, to more recent and far-flung friends in Taiwan and Turkey; from eagle scouts and paratroopers to college roommates and supper clubbers.  And dearest of all, my family, both in California and in Colorado, made me feel very loved.

Erin started it off this past weekend, actually, by joining me out for dinner at the 9th Door - a Spanish tapas restaurant we both enjoy.  We then went out for vodka at the Red Square before making our way home.

Then on Sunday night Erin's parents made me dinner at their place with steak, mushrooms, carrots and mashed potatoes with an apple pie to finish it off.

Then there were the cards and gifts from both my parents and Erin's parents.

What's more is that I have a weekend up in the mountains that Erin is planning for me this Winter once there gets to be more snow.

For all of you that read this blog and are a part of my life I want to say, "Thank you."  It is a very happy birthday because of you.

Halloween diversions

Erin and I have been celebrating the season over the past few weeks starting with pumpkin carving at our friend's (Pete and Leah) house.  We tend to put a fair amount of effort into our pumpkin carving and this year was no exception as we carved out a cat.  It was also fun to just hang out with friends and enjoy some snacks.

For Halloween night itself we didn't actually do the traditional dressing up or handing out candy.  Instead we went to a restaurant called "Jing" which serves Asian Fusion cuisine.  The food was okay, but for the price it could have been better.

After dinner we were near a theater showing a movie Erin and I had wanted to see called, "7 Psychopaths".  From the ads it looked like it would be a comical dog-napping story.  Unfortunately for Erin it proved to be more about psychopaths and less about the cute dog.  I (and the rest of the men in the audience apparently) enjoyed the humor, but it was a bit too gruesome for Erin.

Last night we finished off the spooky diversions by going out to see a reading of Edgar Allan Poe's works.  We started the night at Cuba Cuba for dinner and drinks with our friends Cameron and Rachel.  The food was good and the mojitos were tasty.  We then walked to the reading at the Byers-Evans house near the Denver Art Museum.  There was an ensemble of 6 or 7 actors reading poems and plays from Edgar Allan Poe.  Some were better than others.  Sometimes the actors helped place us in the scene.  Other times they detracted from the scene or made them hard to understand.  All in all though we had a good time and an interesting evening.