Happy Birthday John!!!

It's that time of the year again - that's right, one of the happiest days of the year when people from all over the country gather to celebrate (laughing). Yup, you guessed it - this past weekend was John's 29th birthday. John's parents (Pat & Jeff) flew in from Nebraska bearing gifts for John, and as luck might have it a few family heirlooms for when we get a baby. They brought a couple of John's first outfits - appropriately in yellow and green so we can still use them regardless of whether the baby ends up being a girl, or a boy. They also brought one of John's first blankets. It's very nicely made, and my favorite part is that it has John's name and birthday stitched into the back. I can just imagine a baby all wrapped up in it, snuggling up in one of the very same blankets John snuggled up in when he was just a few months old. So it's great to have our first few pieces of clothing for the baby... although we have to be careful to make sure we don't end up jinxing ourselves. We'll have to make sure we let the family know that we're not accepting any more gifts until we're officially matched and the baby is on it's way.



Back to the party - John's aunt Sue was kind enough to offer to host the party for us. Her house is located just off Peachtree (the main street the runs through Atlanta) so it's fairly convenient for many of our friends who came from all over for the party. We ended up having between 35 and 40 people show up. It was great to see everyone. The crowd was fairly eclectic. It consisted of old friends and new, a few people who are clients of Johns, and a few of my friends from business development where I work. I was really impressed by how well everyone mingled. That's not to suggest that I wasn't expecting people to get along, but it seems like usually there's a couple of people who just don't feel comfortable talking to people they aren't that familiar with. By the end of the night it seemed as though everyone had had an opportunity to have a conversation with everyone else. I think people had a really good time, and some good conversation. Actually, a couple of John's friends who moved out of town several years ago managed to make it so it was particularly nice to see them.


The food was good... a little bit of everything. The standard cheese platters, along with some Sushi (John's parents had never had Sushi before, and actually I think they made it through the party without having any, but we finally convinced his mom to try some at dinner the following night), some great fruit salad, shrimp cocktail, basil chicken, sirloin, etc. It was very nice to have a good mix of food, there was definitely something for everyone. Of course, the birthday cake was one of the main attractions. My friend Brady (from high school) suggested that we get the cake from a local bakery (www.henrisbakery.com) that her aunt's business uses often. Her suggestion turned out great. Not only was the decoration nice, but it tasted amazing. When we picked it up earlier in the day John's mom opened the box in the back of the car to see what it looked like. I kid you not, when I say the smell of the cake was literally one of the best things I've ever smelled. My mouth is watering just thinking about it (I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a little bit of a sweet tooth - BUT I don't think I was the only one that was impressed).

Speaking of sweets, there was one more item on the menu that is included in basically every function that John attends. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but John has an infatuation with Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (www.krispykreme.com). John has said many times that if you haven't had a Krispy Kreme doughnut you just haven't lived. I don't know if I'd go quite that far, but I do agree they do make some great doughnuts. Krispy Kreme is fairly famous - at least in most southern states - for serving their original glazed doughnuts HOT. They actually have a neon sign on the outside of the buildings that they light up when ever they have hot doughnuts available. Anyway, you should find some time to get one if you haven't had one before. Oh - when I said that Krispy Kreme doughnuts are basically at every function John goes to, I wasn't joking. If we're invited to a party - and it's even slightly appropriate - we'll end up bringing Krispy Kremes. I think John secretly has a rule that he can't have Krispy Kremes unless there's some kind of social gathering... so he finds a way to bring them with him. LOL

Our party favors ended up being fairly eclectic as well. A couple weeks before the party John put together a list of some of our favorite summer songs. My job was to physically create the mix CDs, so I went to work creating the playlist on iTunes, and burning the CDs. It turns out that iTunes will only let you burn 7 copies of a playlist. I'm not sure exactly why, I guess it's there to prevent music pirating. So, every 7 CDs I had to change the playlist slightly so that iTunes would let me burn the 30 plus CDs we needed. John also drew a really interesting CD cover - so the CDs ended up looking almost professional. John later ended up officially calling the CDs JMP's Summer Hot Mix. A name I soon hope to forget. (Laughing)

In addition to the CD, John's aunt has a friend who recently started a magazine called WorthWhile. The magazine is essentially focused on helping people find enjoyment from their work - aka, making work worth while. Anyway, knowing that there would be a fairly good number of young professionals at the party she gave everyone an issue. And, of course to top off the party favor pile we had everyone take a brochure for our adoption agency (www.adoptionhelp.org). We figured that we had to have at least one plug for adoption at the party.

Thanks for reading our blog.

~W

P.S. I forgot to mention earlier that John's birthday was the first time that I got to meet his friend, and client, Edie. She actually commented on one of our previous posts in this blog. She is everything John described and more... and definitely a very funny person. Hopefully, I will be able to convince her to spend lots more time with us in the near future. I don't know if she wants the position but in my eyes she's got "baby sitter" written all over her!!! (Laughing)