The end of October always brings a birthday celebration for me (Jamesie). Sometimes, I even get two parties. YAY ME!

This year, Jon planned a wonderful non-surprise evening of dear friends and family for Saturday the 25th. We ate a special dinner at Kelly Jae’s Cafe in downtown Goshen, where we’ve already established ourselves as regulars. Our dinner was hosted in the special private dining room with an awesome selection of tapas: black bean/grilled flatbread, sweet corn & crab chowder (my favorite), roasted edamame, roasted potatoes, crispy duck spring rolls, hangar steak/bleu cheese cream sauce and apple & butternut squash salad.  It was delicious, as always.  and for many of our friends, this was their first time to this restaurant, so it was a special treat for them as well.

Afterwards, we headed to Luke & Gretchen’s downtown apartment for games, birthday cake and just hanging out together.  Some people played Hit or Miss (an interesting game that most people seem to enjoy playing.  i really love the games released by this company.)  Others watched college football.  My wonderful cake was provided by my friend Lark. It’s a Mmmmint Chip ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery. I love mint chocolate chip ice cream!  After everyone left, Gretchen, Luke, Jon & I played Wii MarioKart for awhile. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful evening surrounded by many people who love me and whom I love.

On Friday evening the 31st, the Morningstar family went out to celebrate my dinner at Asakusa Japanese Restaurant in Fort Wayne. It’s someplace we haven’t been before, so it sounded interesting to me. They have the standard Japanese fare of teriyaki dishes and typical sushis, but they also had a wonderful assortment of specialty rolls that they created. I thoroughly enjoyed the Aloha Roll – crab, shrimp tempura, pineapple with a sliver of avocado and drizzled with sweet & sour sauce. tasty!

After dinner, we headed over to Crazy Pinz, where we bowled 2 games in the private suites (at no cost to us) and then played a round of indoor glow-in-the-dark miniature golf.  I definitely had fun, despite knowing that I was going to feel the after-effects of throwing a 12 lb bowling ball around. I hope the rest of the family did too. It’s something we haven’t done before together, so I thought it would be a blast to just goof off.  We’re definitely not a league-worthy bowling team and the highlight of golfing was Jon’s hole-in-one.

Turning 33 was not anything life-changing or drastic. Just another year to look forward to, and loving the family & friends who helped me enjoy it.

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