PARTY!!! PARTY!!!

In Jen's family, everyone is born by a holiday. Her brother is two days shy of Christmas, one sister is the day before New Year's Eve and the other is the day after the 4th of July. But Jen has a special holiday by her birthday: Super Bowl Sunday.

It's been somewhat a tradition for her to watch the SuperBowl on Sunday and cook whatever tailgate food she wants; usually burgers, but she's gotten really good at steaks and other stuff too. But this year it might be different.

There is a four-month streak of events for us: November is our anniversary, Christmas in December, Jen's birthday in January and Valentine's Day in February. Usually we do well the first two, have fun on her birthday, and then just relax for Valentine's. But this year, since we had a somewhat lean holiday season, and because her birthday falls on a Saturday, we're switching things up a bit.

We started our celebrations yesterday. Since Jen put a lot of OT in these last few weeks, and since she refuses to claim it to avoid the wrath of the money-counters, she took off early yesterday and met Jeff at the California Cafe, a really nice restaurant between Stanford Medical and the shopping center. It was a pretty nice restaurant that has a slightly elegant feel to it, especially considering Jen had a burger ;-). But it was a calm way to start off the festivities.

Tonight we are eating out again, this time in downtown Palo Alto. There is a restaurant called Pampas that serves Brazilian churrasco (pronounced something like Chew-hah-sco). They roast different meats on swords with only a little bit of salt, and the waiters go around offering different pieces to the diners (still attached to the swords... the meat, not the waiters!). There is also a very beautiful salad bar with all sorts of exotic fruits and dressings and a bunch of wines and drinks that we won't try, but are pretty to watch everyone else enjoy.

Despite wanting to sleep in, that doesn't look like it'll happen tomorrow. Jen's brother wants to go shooting for her birthday (I think we did something like that the year before) so we're going to a range in Milpitas to target shoot (With all the animals Jen has, there's no doubt she will never try hunting). Then the afternoon will be the family dinner at Texas Roadhouse, another steakhouse. Jen picked it so she could continue with her "Red Neck Birthday" theme, and since it's not too expensive or fussy, she figured her folks would enjoy it as well.

Then, finally, the big event: SuperBowl Sunday. We are still debating on that one. One of the doctors that Jen works with is having a huge SuperBowl party, and that is somewhat appealing, since Jen has never been to his house. Otherwise, if we partied too hard, we'll probably make a ton of snacks and enjoy the game from home. So Sunday is yet to be determined, but it should be a packed weekend regardless.