Free Birthday Goodies!

Melissa (from church) told us Sunday that there was a website that had a list of free food and services you can get if it's your birthday. Sam checked it out and next thing I knew we had a Monday afternoon itinerary! For those of you in the Ann Arbor region, the site is on ArborWiki.org, specifically the URL is: http://arborwiki.org/city/Birthday_Deals.

First we hit up Bubble Island for some bubble tea. Though she tried a new flavor (Taro) that she didn't really like (I thought it was good), it cost us $0.00, so no complaints! They didn't even ID her to double check, and were pretty friendly about it!

Next, we parked downtown and booked it over to the world-famous Zingerman's Delicatessen. Sam picked out 6 bagels free of charge! If you know much about Zingerman's, you know they're expensive so it was a good deal to get 6 free. Again, they didn't even ask for her ID, and they were really nice about it.

We then walked over to Moosejaw on Main Street, where she received 50% off a Moosejaw T-shirt. The service was really friendly. One of the Moosejawers started telling us about the ArborWiki site and offered to print it out for us. We informed him that this was our third stop on our ArborWiki-fed free birthday feeding frenzy.

Our final stop was to meet Laina at Grizzly Peak for dinner, since we knew they had a great birthday deal. Sam got a free dessert, a free Grizzly Peak logo pint glass, and a $10 gift certificate! Although our service wasn't stellar this time, it all worked out. The food was as good as always.

Yum!

Birthday Weekend!

Sam is once again wiser and more mature than her spouse! In celebration of this fact Mom & Dad Wildeboer came down on Saturday to see Sam. We realized that this was their first opportunity to celebrate a birthday with a spouse of one of their children (not that they don't like Mike, but he took off to Japan before his birthday).

We went out to a great Thai place called TupTim. TupTim has great food, and a really nice interior so the fact that the outside is obviously an old Long John Silvers' restaurant is not a big deal. For dessert we headed over to Mom & Dad Steenbergen's for specially delivered chocolate cake from Portillo's (a Chicago classic according to those who lived there). Jamie (the male) Phillips was so kind to pick up a cake while in Chicago for work.

For her birthday I got Sam New York Mets tickets! Well...actually Sam got herself New York Mets tickets, since I was going for a run Sunday morning when they went on sale. So now we're set for two days of NY baseball in two different stadiums! WOO!

In addition to the tickets, I couldn't resist picking up the three little frogs in the picture. I realize that our bathroom was already an overcrowded amphibian preserve, but Sam nearly bought them out of the hospital gift shop herself. Plus...what would a Samantha birthday be without a froggie gift?

(Belated) Birthday Continued...

So...I haven't been so quick about posting lately. Here are the pictures of Mom & Dad's visit to Ann Arbor for my birthday.

Mom made a great peanut butter pie. I believe it's actually titled "Mark's Peanut Butter Pie." The candles were nifty too. If anyone has had a "Hapy Birthday" lately, it's probably because one of the P's is still here...

Blowing out the candles...

Showing my excellent candle blowing form.

FYI...the bottle of rum featured prominently in the background is for a great crock-pot recipe of Bananas Foster. It can be provided upon request...