Forever grateful to be able to celebrate the birth of our pending child with 71 of our most cherished friends. Even though our family members mostly weren’t able to make it, it was nice to see different pockets of friends (many of which I have lost contact with over the years), choose to spend their Saturday celebrating our child’s future birth.
With Kai’s birth coming on the horizon, there was no better occassion to celebrate this momentous day other than the legendary Phil’s BBQ. It was our 219th visit, which just so happens to match our wedding date (2/19). This was purely a coincidence, or was it all destined by the Gods?! Probably.
We got there roughly an hour early to set up some brief decorations, only for the balloons to eventually be all taken down later by a Mexican-Korean menace. With 71 guests and only 2.5 hours to celebrate (extended for the late attendees), that gave me roughly 2 minutes to socialize with each person.
I’m grateful that people actually came and suffered through 2-3 hours of traffic from mostly Orange County to San Diego to eat rather delicious food! I’m glad they enjoyed it enough to take much needed to-go containers home in the process.
Some fantastic baby shower activities of course included the making of our baby’s first ABC book, which we will compile together for our baby to read. Probably through lamination of some sort using school resources. Only choosing of course the best drawings. The rest will be placed in the improvement box (aka trash can).
We also played a Blooket where our attendees was able to answer questions about us, to find our past and future secrets. I hope they were entertained in the process. I also gave Pokemon cards to many of the attendees which hopefully brightened up their day.
In the end, it was an unforgettable baby BBQ, that will forever live in Kai’s heart and organs as he digested the delicious bbq. May many more future celebrations and opportunities arise. On our way out the Phil’s BBQ manager told me to email her directly for future celebrations so she can set things up for us (she remembered us from Trip 150 as well as trip 200 – the bachelor party).
To my high school friends, I am grateful we are able to keep in touch after all these years, and hope we can keep the connections alive despite the time gap that now exists between high school and now.
To my college friends, I hope we can continue to play board games and have more mindless conversations for years to come.
To my teaching friends, I hope you continue to teach me life lessons much more than I have ever taught any of my students.
To friends I’ve met volunteering, I’m glad we helped change the world – one step and one event at a time.
And for everyone else that was at the party, because I knew you, I have been changed for good.
They say that a person becomes the average of the 5 people they’re around the most in life. I know Kai will turn out amazing if he becomes an average of the 71 people that attended this beautiful baby shower today.
