My Mega Exciting Life: Tommy's birthday, Hiroshi's visit, Lakin' it, more Rock (we could all use more Rock!), and I'm fine!

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!

Mr. Smith and I are both officially mid-thirties! Yea! (I am two months older and have a MS and he only has a BS and a BFA so that means I'm older AND wiser! And the boss.)

On Tuesday, Tommy's former boss was in town, Jonny Oh. Jonny lives in California, fan-cee. He was in town to check on the Fountain City Tiger Claw office (RAWR!!) and took us out to supper with his a-dor-able wife, Izzy. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Oh! It was fun to catch up, and plus! We got cake!

cake is free when it's your birthday, who knew?

On his actual birthday:, Tommy's favorite thing in the whole world to eat is sushi and when it's his birthday I suck it up and go have sushi with him. Birthdays should be about what YOU want, right? I had fun with it!

nama, which means "raw" in japanese. you'll find out how i know that in a minute....

I love adventures, so I'm happy to go munch sushi every once in a while, but I totes made a big ole faux pas immediately:

whoops... you can take the girl out of her kitchen, but you can't put her into a restaurant that serves raw fish and expect her to know how to behave.

I will try anything once! I tried sake!

this is pre-sake picture... see how happy i am? um... me no likey sake.....

Now I knew going in I don't like raw fish, so I ordered a roll of tofu and a roll of shitake mushrooms:

bad pic, but it was bee-you-ti-ful! i ate most of it! WITH CHOPSTICKS. the nice lady gave me a new pair. already broken in half. ahem.

Here's Tommy's supper!!!

OMG! IT'S ON FIRE!!! jeez, when i think presentation, i think cloth napkins. not PGA, matches and a boat load of "hey watch this!"

It all went down fine, but the next day, if anyone said the word "sushi," I wanted to puke. I'll be alright, I promise. By the time next August 13 rolls around, I'll be ready for another sushi foray. I think. *totally just barfed everywhere*

The next night my family came over and my Darling Mama procured a lovely cake for Tommy Smith. He loved it, see?

please note, his absentee, non-cake-making wife had no candles in the house. i found an old tea light, wiped the cat hair off and stuck it on the plate so he could have something to blow out.

Howevs, please allow me to make note; here is the birthday cake my Darling Mama procured for my birthday:

ummmmm... say whaaaa? allegedly, this says "Megan"

Now, let's take a closer look at Tommy's cake:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMMY! read you loud and clear, mama...

(Kidding! I love my dandelion/not-really-daisy cake!)

Friday night, we had such a fun reunion!

The summer of my sophomore year into high school, my folks became aware of a Japanese student my brother's age who was moving from Japan to Knoxville, Tenn. His father was working for Panasonic and intended to move his whole family from Osaka to Knoxville to live with a 16-year-old son and he wished he might be introduced into our culture instead of starting high school cold.

Mary Ann and Sam knew we were the family for the job! Hiroshi Kono became Clay and my brother for a summer, and the friendship has lasted throughout the years. There are so many fun and wonderful stories I can tell about our time together, but allow me to sum it up with this cultural exchange: the hardest I ever saw Hiroshi laugh was the day my father taught him how to play this game where you shove as many grapes in your mouth at one time without chewing or swallowing.

I don't know through what evaluation process the Venables passed, but if I had to go with, "give me the most representative 'East Tennessee family' for this endeavor" it is absolutely not surprising Hiroshi ended up with us. And I'm so thankful and glad he did!

Hiroshi lives in Tokyo now with his wife:

she runs her own dog grooming salon. isn't she cute? hiro says she's camera-shy and this is the only pic i could get. it's from her web site. dangit! someone that cute should not be camera-shy!

back in the day; me, brothers clay and hiroshi

present day; me, brothers clay and hiroshi

back in the day, crazy photo

keepin' it real, crazy photo

hiroshi and i graduated from ut on the same day. our families had a party together in the downtown hyatt. his family gave me a watch i wore (no joke) until a watchmaker told me it could no longer be fixed. i have not worn a watch since! hiro is now a self-employed patent attorney in tokyo, after completing his BS at UTK and his MS at The Ohio State U.

here we all are! together again!

kristina! when did you show up! yea! happy to see you!

whee! happy we're all here!

neffie-poo max examines my car

niecey-poo lucy debates the finer points of accessories

clay and kim are horrified to see they've arrived at the *same* function in the *same* shirt

ha ha, no they're not! they think it's cute!

Next, we went to the lake WHICH IS MY ALL TIME FAVE:

that's the pool at the lake. and jenny torturing lottie sue while mattie looks on in compliance.

the boys in the hot tub with lottie sue. she doesn't seem to mind so much here....

but in here she's in agony!! what's the diff? oh yeah, she's in my arms... poison!!!

a shot from the hot tub to the lake *nice!* thank you, batty and bb for having us!

underwater meeting!

Lottie Sue is not a morning person. After her nap, she gets shoved in this *totally cute* paisley bathing suit and it does nothing for her disposition. She's so cute! It overrides!!!