John's 30th Birthday

John did such a good job of surprising me for my 30th birthday, that I wanted to make sure we celebrated him on his 30th. He had mentioned wanting to have a "Smokey and the Bandit" style costume party, but I just couldn't get that thrown together.

He got to pick the restaurant we went to on Sunday (of course, he picked the Hat) and then we went to Vince's just the 3 of us on his actual birthday night. Owen and I got him an Ipod Shuffle to use in his work truck, complete with portable speakers. I also enlisted Bill's help to fill the Ipod with all of the obscure country songs that would fit on it, since we always end up listening to my music. John was really happy while he sat shuffling through all of the songs that were on it. I happen to be glad that it will stay in his work truck. :)

It still seemed like we needed to do something bigger, though!

I decided to take him to Farrell's, which is a crazy place that is known for its raucous atmosphere and awesome ice cream. The timing worked out perfectly that we were able to go after church and we were also able to celebrate Delaney's graduation from 8th grade. (Dylan also graduated from 6th grade and was invited to participate, but he politely declined. John probably would have declined too, if he had known just how much attention was going to be on him to get some ice cream...)

Until we walked in, I had forgotten just how loud it gets in there. I worried about bringing Owen, and wondered how he would respond. Surprisingly, he fell asleep in the Moby as soon as we sat down, and slept through all of the excitement.

Our waiter was Reggie and he was pretty funny. The most embarrassing part of the night was when he started dancing behind John saying "Who wants some ice cream, some icy icy ice cuh-ream?" We were all so stunned we didn't get any of it on camera.

We ordered the volcano, which is 30 scoops of ice cream with tons of toppings.

John had to stand on a chair while they sang him "Happy Birthday" Indiana Jones style. His face was pretty red, but he said it was funny. Everyone asked him whose idea this was, which of course it was mine, but he agreed to go for it. He did say that it seemed fine to agree at the time, until he got into the place and saw what he was going to have to do. I am proud of him for being a good sport. :)

We yelled "HIP HIP Good grades!" for Delaney's graduation.

The volcano. The menu says it serves 10 people, and we debated about ordering more. It ended up being plenty.

Caleb was a little overwhelmed by the whole experience. He laughed at the crazy waiter, and watched stunned every time the sirens went off, or they started playing drums. He did keep asking, though, "When do we get ice cream?"

Dylan had his own gift card and got to order his own dessert. He was almost able to eat the whole thing by himself!

It was a really fun night. It felt like summer vacation, since we were able to go out late and not have to worry about waking up the next morning for school! (Except poor John, who only got 4 hours sleep before having to get up at 2 to make a delivery for work. He is currently napping beside me after a long day and a late night.)

We probably never get to go to Farrell's again, though...