Happy Birthday to Ben!

It's Ben's birthday today! I won't embarrass him by telling you how old he is but let's just say that if you multiply 4 by 9, he'll be that old two years from now. And yes, I double checked that with a calculator...

He took the day off work, and the girls both went to daycare this morning, so we got to hang out just the two of us! You might think that would be a good opportunity for some romance, but instead we went to Target and then I did some work while he nagged me to hurry up so we could go to lunch. And what a lunch it was! There's a sushi buffet next door to where he works that he has been excited to take me to, but it doesn't go well with kids and it's kind of pricey... well today was the perfect day to go!

(I didn't take this, it came from here, but ours looked very similar)

You order what you'd like off the menu and they bring it to your table, and then you just keep ordering more and more food until you're making this happy groaning noise and sneakily unbuttoning your trousers to give your tummy more space. It was so yummy!

Fiona gave him Toy Story 3. She was excited about it - it has a dinosaur on it!

I'm sure she'll be up bright and early tomorrow morning to watch it with him :-)

We had a party at his parents house - jointly with his Dad who is having a birthday next week. We had pizza and.. ICE CREAM CAKE!! Mmmmmmmm YUM!

I think the best part of the day for Fiona was licking ice cream and frosting off the candles...

And the best part for Ben was choosing a new phone for me and then getting to "set it up for me". He's been really excited about it and finding out that it was released today made this the best birthday ever. He's funny.

Happy Birthday Sweetie! We love you!

Flying Penguin

Fiona has been interested in animals for some time. She loves to watch animal videos on youtube. I came in last week to catch a snippet of this one... make sure you watch it before reading on...

Isn't that incredible? I thought it was the most wonderful video. I didn't think too hard about how feasible it was that they'd discovered a new species of flying penguin, never mind how likely it would be for them to land in South America. And Fiona LOVES this video. When we watch it she gets so excited and jumps around yelling "pehguings... fwy! fwy!". It's really fun.

So you can imagine my disappointment to find that the video was a BBC April Fool's joke! I feel a bit dopey for not realising it, but most of all I'm just worried that Fiona is going to grow up thinking Penguins can fly ;-)

If you're interested, there's a video about how they made it.

Later this evening Ben, in fake frustration, jokingly stomped his foot and exclaimed "dang it!". Fiona laughed so hard I thought she was going to wet herself. Maybe she did, she does wear diapers, I'd never know... For the rest of the evening Ben, Me, or Fiona would say "dang it!" and Fiona would crack up all over again. I haven't laughed so hard in a long long time. And yes, we really have to watch what we say around her now!

She's so funny :-)

Father's Day

So Sunday was Father's day.

Side note: Dad - I tried to skype you, but you all must have been out doing something exciting. Either that or ignoring me. Happy Father's day anyway!

On Sunday Fiona woke up super early. 4.45 early. After listening to her babble through the monitor for a while it became clear that she was not going back to sleep, and was getting increasingly angry at being ignored, so I hauled myself out of bed.

We spent some time eating breakfast together and playing, and then we made a card for her Daddy. She seemed to enjoy it, but next time the crayons will not be used in the same room as the couch. I should have known better.

After all this it was almost 8am, so we decided that Father's day priveledges only extend so far, and it was time to pay Daddy a visit.

Fiona was VERY excited to find Daddy. Ben... not so much.

Still, it was ok. Fiona took a nap, and I made Ben his favourite breakfast... Omelette and hash browns. I was going to take a picture, but I forgot. It looked (and apparently was) delicious. Much better than my last cooking endeavour.

Fiona woke up, and we did some stuff. I forget what. Then we headed to Fuddruckers for a traditional Father's day late lunch. Fuddruckers is Ben's favourite restaurant, so we go there for "his" occasions.

Here's Ben hanging with the Fi. (The woman in the background is totally posing for my picture)

And for nostalgia, here's the Father's day celebration at Fuddruckers last year...

Crazy. This year Fiona did a lot less sleeping and a lot more milkshake demanding.

When we got home Fiona took another nap and Ben opened his presents. Fiona and I gave him a thermos named "Stainless King" to take his coffee to work in, and Garden State on DVD. Garden State is one of my our favourite movies and I we enjoyed watching it later that evening!

That was about it. It was a nice day. Happy Father's day Ben!

Star Trek...

Disclaimer: Don't worry, I'm not going to spill any important details. In fact, very little time will be spent discussing the actual movie...

Ben has been pretty excited about the Star Trek movie. I don't think he'd qualify as a Trekkie, but he's definitely a big fan, and his brain is packed with Star Trek knowledge. So much so, that he has trouble aquiring new knowledge, such as Anniversary dates... ;-)

I was somewhat concerned... after all, he was also excited about the Transformers movie, and that was total rubbish, but this one looked like it might actually be halfway decent, so yesterday Cathy, Erik, and the two of us entrusted our collective children to grandparents, and hit up opening night. 

In the commercials, one of the tag lines was "It's not your Father's Star Trek", and with this, I think they hit the nail on the head. Somehow, they have managed to create a movie which I think has some appeal for the vast majority of people. This movie is your wife's Star Trek, even your boy-obsessed teenage daughter's Star Trek...

Because that's the key. They've taken fantastic special effects, exciting storylines, heart-warming personal relationships, characters that have appealed to millions and have stood the test of time, and then they added... HOT MEN! Oh yes. 

Most of you know Zachary Quinto as the endearing (and, some might say, extremely attractive) bad guy in Heroes, Sylar. The main appeal of this movie for me is that he played Spock. In case you're not convinced, here's a picture of him without his Spock costume...

Oh, do excuse me, I seem to have drooled on my keyboard.

And when you add Chris Pine, who plays Kirk, well there's a winner right there. 

How could this movie possibly not succeed? 

This morning Ben said to me... 

"Some Trekkies may complain that the Federation first encountered the Romulons after Kirk became the Captain."

If you're looking for that kind of discussion, he'd be the one to talk to.

But I wasn't really paying any attention... I was lost in fantasies of being the filling in a Kirk-Spock sandwich. 

So overall, I loved this movie. The only possible fault I can think of is that there were too many scenes where they were dressed like this...

And not any where they dressed like this...

Disappointing.