Max's birthday and more

Meegan covered much of Max's birthday already. The day was eventful for me, too.

I finally got the the Pathfinder registered. It took only nine months and one ticket sufficiently motivate me to get the air quality testing station, pay the required $75, and put the stickers on. Now I'm ready for my date with the traffic court judge. I took care of the car registration on the way to talk to Dr. Hoang Le about my herniated disk.

From there, I went to work. I'm working on several projects currently. One involves wage negotiations between a labor union and the contracts who hire them. The other project is for an investor who is trying to change zoning to allow him to construct a luxury hotel in Oregon's wine country. I also have some construction-related litigation work in the pipeline, but that work seems to be wrapping up.

For his birthday, Max requested spaghetti. That is easy. When I was growing up, one of my birthday requests was fondue. Ahh, fondue. We'd have both steak and chicken, fried in peanut oil, and served with a variety of dipping sauces. Great for an kid, work for parents. In contrast, spaghetti is a godsend: cheap and easy.

At 7:00 the family party started. I was exhausted and in pain, so I spent much of the time sitting in a chair taking it all in. The cake selected by Max was a chocolate lover's fantasy--chocalate cake, chocolate filling, chocolate icing, topped with chocolate grenache. I loved it. I finally checked out at 10:15, leaving everyone else downstairs. Jack and Max fell asleep around 11:00 in Meegan's lap.

Friday was Part II. Max's friend's party was at Rainbow Park & Playground. It's a warehouse-showroom for outdoor play equipment--very nice outdoor play equipment. The marketing geniuses there also rent out the warehouse full of demo equipment for parties. The kids love it. Max had 16 friends and their siblings from preschool and elsewhere. Despite the range in ages (from 4 to 11), everyone got along and seemed to have a blast.

Almost immediately after that, Jack had "hit the pin" night at his school. Hit the Pin is a modern version of dodgeball where teams throw balls aimed at knocking over two bowling pins on their opponent's side. Teams are supposed to protect their own pins. However, if a player is hit by an opponent's thrown ball, he or she is "out." Jack's P.E. teacher ran the tournament which was divided into grade level groups as well as moms group and a dads group. Turnout was huge, there must have been 30 moms and 50 dads playing in their respective groups. Jack had fun while he was playing, but the late night before and the afternoon activity at Rainbow wiped him out. We left after about an hour.