Older. Wiser.

One more year, come and gone. To celebrate the start of a fresh 365-day rotation around the sun, Dominic planned a day for us enjoy what I love: playing in the sun and eating delicious food.

The Bronx is lovely, especially when you surround yourself with the NY Botanical Garden and - new to me this summer - Orchard Beach. One bus from Fordham Road, just past Co-Op City, this 'engineering marvel' offers a beach fit for honeymooners. Ok, maybe not that relaxing, but definitely suitable for an afternoon jog and a cool dip. The beach is clean and the metal detectorists are very friendly.

Fun fact: I have wanted to go to a hibachi grill since I was 21. Seriously. They cook the food right in front of you! They do tricks with their kitchen utensils. What could be better? If it's good enough for The Office it will work for my birthday dinner. As it turns out we sat at a table full of people from the Bronx. Sure, the general mood was grumpy at the beginning, but it turned out to be a fun group after the birthday ice cream was delivered.

Last year's Vancouver B.C. Birthday kite. A forbidden activity on Orchard Beach, this picture must have been snapped right before we were scolded by a park ranger.

If you want a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery for your birthday the time to go is 10:30 p.m. Otherwise, put on your comfy shoes because you'll be waiting in a line that wraps around the block. The verdict: totally worth it.

San Francisco Surprise

I have quite a wife.

Christ being a tough act to follow, makes my birthday (December 26^th) a day that I (and I must assume others) don’t really look forward to celebrating all that much. It’s just bad timing. I dread having to recharge (or appear to) the day after Christmas for another celebration… and it’s my own birthday. But with marriage comes new priorities, new skill sets. Sarah happens to love birthdays and has a real talent for surprises.

After celebrating my birthday in Ohio with a lobster lunch, a birthday card to open every 30 minutes (thanks all who sent cards), a trip to the zoo and bowling extravaganza, Sarah ended the night with one final card… A surprise trip to San Francisco for New Years.

Our New Year’s Eve was amazing. Staying in Union square, hanging out in North Beach, riding trolley cars and then fireworks on the waterfront. But Sarah wasn’t finished. Did I mention she loves surprises?

After a perfect day hanging out and watching the Rose Bowl (I shamelessly bandwagoned the Buckeyes once it became clear they would win), we headed out to dinner. North Beach, where we were staying, is the Italian district in San Francisco and renowned for all its wonderful and plentiful Italian restaurants. We settled on Thai. After dinner I was shocked to enter a local watering hole to find a group of my college friends there to greet 

me. Five minutes later my high school buddies arrived. Oh… did I mention that Sarah likes surprises? It was awesome to be surprised by so many friends and we had a fun filled night celebrating.

The very next day after touring the city, we headed to my uncle and aunt’s house for what I thought would be a nice intimate dinner. I was greeted by more Monleys than you can shake a stick at. Sarah had arranged another surprise party for my cousin Erika and I with my family. To have a second surprise party… or was it the third, was even more amazing. We celebrated long into the night. In short; a wonderful trip. I truly am blessed to have friends and family who were willing to make a trip San Francisco for the parties, as well as hosting and touring Sarah and I around the city.

Mostly, I’m lucky to have such a wonderful wife.  

OH... HO HO HO

I started worrying about our trip to Ohio in May when I booked the red-eye flight from Seattle to Columbus via Washington D.C. Despite some inclement weather the weekend before, all our prayers paid off and we arrived safely at CMH on Christmas Eve morning.

After brief naps and a remote work day, we celebrated the birth of Jesus at Lord of Life Lutheran Church. It was the first time we had been back since the wedding ceremony and the sanctuary was as beautiful as ever. It was strange to miss Pastor Jim, who is on a five month-long sabbatical, but we enjoyed seeing long-time family friends and worshiping as a family.

I knew that Christmas with the Zaengers would be very different from Dominic's experiences in the Monley family, but we had a wonderful Christmas day. We took my grandparents to Catholic Mass and then spent quality time visiting with family, exchanging gifts and eating. Exhausted, we collapsed into bed relatively early.

Bright and early on the 26th we got to celebrate another birthday -- Dominic's! Starting at 9 a.m., he was able to open a birthday card from a friend or family member every 30 minutes. The cards helped remind him just how special his day is and how, despite being away from others, he's remembered.

My Mom and Dad received a lobster gram for Christmas and generously shared with us for Dominic's birthday. Here he is reading a card and protecting his OSU t-shirt from clam chowder.

Dominic liked to tease: "Don't do anything special for my birthday. Knowing you, I'll end up with a petting zoo and a bouncy house." To prove him right, we took him to the Columbus Zoo. The animals were out and about, the carousel was spinning and the new LED lights were shinning bright. It was a fun visit.

Jill and Rachel generously hosted a pizza party and bowling night for Dominic. We aren't the best bowlers, but it was a great time.

Next year... bouncy house...

Birth-week

I'll be traveling to Ohio on my birthday this year so Dominic decided to plan a birthday celebration one week early. I was OK with this so long as I could keep celebrating for the duration of the week. Having been born on December 26th, he's not much for creating a big to-do over birthdays, but I'm hoping to change this in him the longer we're together.

He came over early yesterday and brought Cranberry Almond Crunch (the best cereal ever) with him. We had some breakfast and then he surprised me with a new (to me) older bicycle. This would be our mode of transportation for our "Seeing Seattle" themed day.

The seeing began with a trip down the hill to a nearby neighborhood, Fremont. Each year this community throws a big festival for the summer solstice. We enjoyed looking at a collection of decorated cars, riding the European Super Slide and watching a solstice parade.

The Fremont Solstice parade only has three rules: 1. No printed words or logos, 2. No motor vehicles, 3. No animals. You can imagine (and I'll show you below) what we saw.

The parade, as interesting as it is, had a new addition this year. Just before the costumed dancers, musicians and stilt-walkers emerge there's a large parade of people on their bicycles. People riding bikes alone may not seem like much, but very few of these bikers wear more than their helmets. Don't worry, there's decorative paint. For the record, Dominic and I did not bike in this portion of the parade.

That's a lot of dentures!

The European Super Slide--It's really fast!


There were probably ten women dressed up in these elaborate costumes. Something related to ice... They were beautiful.

Dominic...under the parade... can you see him?


If someone would have made me judge over the parade, this group would have won my award for most creative costume/messaging combination. Their outfits were made out of plastic bags and they were chanting something about reduce, reuse recycle so that bags don't end up in the ocean. There was a man dressed up like a big fish somewhere towards the back of the pack.

It's a bull, and smoke blows out of its nostrils!

This man (a tree) was my favorite stilt walker.

From Fremont we biked to the base of the space needle and, much to my surprise, boarded the most thrilling form of tourism that exists: The Ducks! For those who live or work on the Duck route, I apologize. I'm sure it's a quite a nuisance to have to listen to a car/boat load of people singing the YMCA and shrieking at every Starbucks they pass, but for those inside the Duck it's a blast. I learned all kinds of interesting facts about the city like: The space needle was originally orange, where the Sleepless in Seattle house is located on Lake Union and how much the owners tried to sell it for last year (more than $2 million), how many times a day the Fremont bridge goes up and down (35) and that Seattle is the largest ferry system in the U.S. It was so exciting my face hurt from smiling all day long.



We returned to Queen Anne for a little rest and then took a picnic dinner to my favorite park in the whole city: The SAM sculpture park.

I crawled, exhausted, in to bed-- loving this city and my dear fiance for letting me see it with him.