Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday. My 30th birthday. Ech. I am officially old.

However, I had a really fun day. My friends thought it would be nice to have a bbq at a nearby lake. At least I think it was a lake. I never actually saw any water. Mostly it looked like a campground in the woods. We had a nice big area to set up our stuff, and plenty of room to play some games.

Here are some pictures of the day:


Hmm, what will this day hold? Besides being able to look up my nose?


Getting the grills going.



Putting on some grilled vegetables. Eggplant, pepper, pumpkin, and carrot ( I think).



Nobuko saying, "Don't take my picture."


Tomoya waiting to eat.


Yay! It's food time!


Preparing yaki onigiri. My favorite!



So, turns out I didn't take any pictures of eating, probably because I was eating at the time. But lots of pictures of people sitting around and chatting. You know, like adults tend to do when they are old like me.


And here is the ladies table. AHA! They are eating.


Yaki onigiri is too hot to hold, but too tasty not to eat. Solution, beer can holder!

After eating and chatting like adults, it was time to have some fun like kids! We played catch!


With a boomerang that didn't quite work. Kazu was the only one who could get any sort of distance or return on it.


My second favorite shot of the day. Action shot! I am an amazing photographer.

I love playing sports. Any and all sports. Just playing catch was fantastic fun. And then we played badminton and volleyball. I could have done that all day.

We also played dodgeball, but I was dodging too much to take any pictures!




But it was too tiring for some.

Overall, a great bbq.

And although I don't think any of them read this. Thank you to everyone who helped make it such a fun afternoon.




oh, and here's a giant bird.



After the bbq, some of us went to a bar for a nightcap.

This is what the bathroom looked like:

Dozens if not hundreds of stuffed animals lined all along the wall. Watching me pee. Yeah, that isn't creepy at all.

Everyone was really smiley!





This is my favorite picture of the day:


"What exactly do you think you are doing?"

After I took these pictures....well, apparently I fell asleep for a while because the next thing I knew it was time to go. In my defense, I had been drinking pretty steadily for the past 7 or 8 hours at this point. So I slept at a table in a bar. That is how my day ended.

All in all, I had a damned fine birthday.

And some day I will get back to covering Mom's trip. But for now, I am sleepy.