Birthday Weekend

Angela and I had a great weekend this last weekend. Angela went all out and planned a bunch of stuff. To start, at 4PM, she took me out to an early dinner at the melting pot and we had a swiss cheese fondue and a smoors chocolate fondue for dessert. We left the melting pot around 5:15PM and drove to a parking lot where we were to take a helicopter flight around the city. They landed the helicopter at 5:30PM and we got in and took off at 5:45PM. I had been up in a Bell Jetranger once before and this was a Robinson R-44 Raven helicopter. I sat up front with the pilot and the view was spectacular, it truly took my breath away. The view from the front of the Robison was far better than the Jetranger and you could see everything. Here's a pic of the chopper and a picture of me while we're flying.

After we landed, we went and checked into our hotel downtown, we had a room at the downtown Mariott. We then went to a little dive bar and drank a beer. Angela had planned a surprise party with a bunch of my friends and she had reserved a table at a really popular dueling piano bar downtown about a block from our hotel called "Keys on Main." We arrived around 9PM and the show started soon afterwards. One of the piano players was a guy that used to work for Angela at Kelly Services and he was really, really good. He had us get up on stage in front of a few hundred people and we did a slow dance on stage. It was really neat. The played a lot of great songs and really worked the crowd. The bar is huge and by the end of the night it was packed with people standing wall to wall, we felt really lucky to have a table. We ended up staying here until 1:00AM when they closed and then we went back to our hotel. We slept until about 6AM and then woke up and decided we'd rather be at home in bed. We left the hotel at 6AM and drove back home to sleep in our own bed. The only bummer was that our camera ran out of batteries about half way through the night. One of my friends took a bunch of pics and I'll have to see if I can get them. Here are some pics from 'Keys on Main.'

My good friend LJ Hooten and his girlfriend, Sekoro.
Angela and her sister, Kristi
Sekoro and Chris.
Kristi's husband Philip paying homage to the mighty pianos.
My cute wife. The pianos, Angela's friend Jordan is on the right piano.

Here's a closer shot of Jordan. He was quite the rock star. Note the zombie in the lower left corner.

Angela and I towards the end of the night.
Mark and I.
Mark, Annie, and I. Yes, Mark is wearing beer goggles.

On Sunday, we slept for a few hours at home and then went over to Angela's parent house for a really great Sunday dinner of roast with mashed potatoes, gravy, and carrots. I'm quite the meat and potatoes kind of guy and it was superb. We had cake and ice cream and it was really fun. Next, we grabbed Whiskey (thanks for watching him!) went to the care facility that Angela's grandmother is staying in and spent a few minutes with Bob and Elda, they were great to see and always brighten our day. One of the ladies in the nursing home recommended that we get Whiskey a hearing aid. (I guess you had to be there...) We ended the weekend at home in bed watching TV. Angela and I both agreed that it was one of the most fun weekends we've had in a long time.