Birthdays

Last week (I know, it has been a while) we had a birthday-party theme. On tuesday my colleague Mary, the immunologist and "lab's mother" turned 55 which was a good reason for the lab to go out for an extensive lunch. We went to downtown Portland and had a great lunch. The trip into the city from our lab must have looked pretty funny, I was in the "international convertible"; An American, Ukrainian, Chinese and Dutch guy in one car. In the afternoon there was cake and icecream, which seems to be a normal combination here. Needless to say we did not get a lot of work done that day.

Thursday it was time for a much more anticipated birthday; Max turned 5! He had been telling us for two weeks how long it would take before he had as birthday. For a 5-year old a birthday is one big rush of excitement; presents, cake, attention and a lot of it all! He had his party at "Pump it Up", which is gym full of blow-up slides, jumping pillows etc. Party-heaven for these kids. After jumping we went to the party room for cake and Max, got his presents sitting on a giant blow-up chair. When all the kids were leaving again, he told me; "I've got a lot of new toys, we're gonna open them all tonight" Of course he was to tired to live up to this, but I got my fair share of Lego and Playmobil the following days.....