Matthew celebrated his birthday again today. We headed over to Blue Frog- one of his favorite restaurants. It's very kid friendly, has a Little Blue Bar where all the kids wind up eating their dinners. The Little Blue Bar looks like a bar. It has a counter, bar stools and behind the bar, you'll find jars and jars of assorted candy, toys and other chotckies. There's a "bar tender" who watches over the kids and instead of ESPN playing on the television in the bar, it plays the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon or kid friendly movies. It gives the parents a chance to have a dinner without kids screaming...."Can we leave yet?", "I'm bored- are you done eating?" In fact, it's often the parents prying their kids out of the bar.We had dinner with Ina and her family. While Rene and Matthew spent time at the bar eating their dinner and buying candy, we were able to enjoy our dinner with drinks and great conversation.
We ordered a birthday cake from Blue Frog- a chocolate on chocolate concoction that was loaded with just the right amount of sugar to send the kids bouncing off the walls. It was the weekend and it didn't matter if they didn't sleep until who knows when.We'll be heading over to Beijing next weekend for a long weekend. Matthew has a term break and it'll be a great time to take him to see other parts of China. Tony will be joining us for a few days and then I'll head to Qingdao with Matthew to visit Liza and her family. Liza's son, Brian was a former classmate of Matthew's in Chinese school on Long Island. Those were the days when we used to drive Matthew every Sunday morning at 8:00 AM from Connecticut to Plainview, Long Island for Chinese school. Liza and her family live in China during the year and return to the US for the summer. It will be nice to have a little reunion with someone we know.
