Happy 30th Birthday Dan!

The long awaited time has finally come (for Joy)... Dan's 30th Birthday!  Joy has been anxiously waiting for Dan to finally join the 30's club, even though Dan wasn't quite ready to leave his 20's yet.  To help him ease into his 30th birthday, he had quite a few celebrations:  a surprise birthday party with friends, party at work, dinner at Sushi King, dinner at Eddie V's with the Dernicks, and dinner at Taste of Texas with the Kongs.  Yes, all this happened within a span of just one week.  Dan had quite the welcome into his 30's.  Happy Birthday Dan!

Surprise Birthday Party at Lilian's house:

Special THANK YOU to Lilan and Lizann for preparing and setting up all the food.

Everything looked amazing and delicious.

The guests waiting for the birthday boy to show up.  As usual, we were running late.  

Dan didn't know everyone was waiting on him to start the party.

Can't come to a Kong party without party favors - cookies with Dan's face on them.

Dan walking into Lilian's kitchen, not even noticing anyone.

"Oh, someone else other than the Funks are here too"

"Hey, why is everyone here, and why did they all just yell 'SURPRISE' for?"

"Hmmm, I think I know these people."

"Now, I get it!  It's a surprise for me.  How did you do that?"

Some of the guests really enjoyed the treats

Playing 'How well do you know Dan' game with a family member,

an old friend, and a new friend.

Happy Birthday Dan!  Blow our your candles!

Actual Birthday weekend:

Pancakes for breakfast for the Birthday boy.  Thanks mum for the yummy

Hubble and Hudson pumpkin pancake mix.  

Birthday Dinner at Sushi King.  They even decorated our table.  How cute!

Our yummy meal included some amazing sushi.  We got to try some

different fish and they were all delicious!

They gave Dan a complimentary dessert and even sang Happy Birthday to him! 

Birthday Dinner with Dernicks at Eddie V's.  Dan choose the Tomahawk steak.  

It was ginormous!  You could hurt someone with that steak!

The Celebration continues with dinner with the Kongs at Taste of Texas.

Joy's birthday gift to Dan finally arrives a few days late - a new exhaust for his car. 

He was very excited to open it. 

Here he is proudly showing off his new black ceramic coated exhaust.

cough, cough,  ... Riiiiicooolaaaa! 

Chefs Dernick

Joy's BFF (also known as Nandita by others) gave her a cooking class gift certificate for her birthday last year.  (Isn't that such a cool gift idea?)  Anyways, we've been wanting to go check out one of the classes but just never got around to it.  Since the gift certificate was about to expire, Joy decided to plan our November date night at Well-Done cooking class.  We've never been to a real cooking class nor are we great cooks, so we were a little nervous.  Not nervous because we'd embarrass ourselves (well, maybe just a little), but because we were told we would be eating the food we make... no pre-made foods for mess ups.  So, we could have just paid lots of money for a lousy dinner, with no one else to blame but ourselves.
Turns out, the cooking class was a lot of fun!  We picked a three course dinner class, with steak as the main course.  There were 16 other students and we all cooked in groups of four.  We actually learned quite a few tips and highly recommend this class.  (http://www.welldonecc.com/index.aspx)  Thanks BFF for the fun class!

Getting ready to start our class.

Lesson #1:  Burn the bell pepper..."Umm, are you sure you want us to 'burn' it all black?"

 

 1st Course:  Carrots and Cheese Soup.  Very yummy!

 2nd Course:  Pesto Mashed Potato.  Looks funny, but tastes yummy.

2nd Course:  NY Strip Steak.  Good Job Dan for grabbing the bigger steak for us!

Chef Dan seasoning our steak.

Chef Dan checking on our steak with Sous Chef Joy just observing.

Our very medium rare pan seared NY strip steak.  

Chef Dan taking a bite into his steak that he worked so hard for.

View of our classroom, which is at our instructor's house.

Chefs Joy and Dan with a real Chef Celeste.