Birthday dinner

After an expensive, grandiose16th birthday party last year – opposite Thunder Over Louisville – with a bunch of his Brown School classmates at Lazer Blaze, this year we were going to take Vincent out to dinner tonight, on his birthday eve, and then celebrate his birthday partly with cupcakes at youth group tomorrow afternoon. Vincent and Stephanie had been out for sushi at a Japanese restaurant on Frankfort Avenue near our church several months ago. But instead of the three of us going there, we let Vincent also invite two friends (Sam and Aaron were the ones he could reach this afternoon) and, when the Frankfort Avenue restaurant had a long wait, we went to a rival restaurant down the street, Osaka. Stephanie and I had some Korean food, and Sam had calamari, but otherwise we had sushi (including some adventurous sushi that I didn’t love – Vincent mainly went for the very spicy). It still amazes us that our son won’t eat onions or tomatoes but loves sushi, hummus, and other international/exotic foods. It was actually fun watching/participating with Vincent and his friends over a round table and sushi for an hour and a half plus. At times we almost seemed like five adults. It was much quieter than last year! Vincent’s friends did kid him about some things, including some of his anime interests. They lost me some with they talked about video games. On the way home, Aaron did a dead-on voice of our October 2007 Danish exchange student. (There’s still a chance that Vincent may go to Denmark in June). After dinner, the boys headed to Lazer Blaze (some place he hasn’t been able to go for a couple of months with his sinking grades), but Vincent later came home saying it wasn’t fun because it was too crowded. (Stephanie said Vincent was kind of cute coming in to say good night after returning. "Is there anything you want to say to me while I'm still 16?" he asked.) Growing out of it? (Sam and Vincent were in the 10-minute plays together, and Aaron and Vincent and our families both hosted Danes this past October. Vincent has stayed at both of their houses over night.) He wasn’t able to reach other friends of his, including Cody and Matthew.