My wife claims she's having a pretty good birthday today, which makes me happy. We didn't do anything too elaborate - we drove to Renton and went to the Southcenter mall, which has a new name that I've forgotten. The facelift they had is pretty impressive, it looks like a mall in a different city. We just walked around and then scooted to Jimmy Mac's for lunch.

The kids got a kick out of being able to drop peanut shells on the floor, which they did every chance they got. There were even a variety of drops, from the elaborate toss to the causal dangle drop, and the sweep off the table for good measure.

We had a full rack each, which is a damn lot of food, ribs bigger than my head, which is quite sizable in its own meat and bones right. We had about half the meal before packing it in, before we headed home. My gamble with the almost empty gas tank was almost lost, I think we were maybe a mile away from a dead stall.

We also stopped at REI to pick up the trailer bike, which ran 200 bucks more than I'd care to spend. But since Alex won't be able to catch up with us for quite some time, he will have to tag along with us. He won't quite fit in the bucket seat anymore, so it was the next step up. And after that was a stop for ice cream cake at DQ, and then home for a while.

This is my life. I'm sitting waiting for Alex in his martial arts class, and listening to my podcasts on my phone. I glanced over to the video playing in the dojo, which shows a certain monk with a sword doing drunken fighting. And the song in my head is a chorus chanting, "Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep..." its an interview with Eric Idle talking about his musical rendition of "Life of Brian". Or something.

Tonight's agenda is ice cream cake, Rock Band, and sleep. I definitely need my 7 to 8 hours every night I think. My sanity depends on it. But I hope its been a good birthday for my wife. Happy birthday, honey.