Kenny's B-day

K so I have some serious catching up to do. I have been quite lazy and haven't been up to posting about certain events and now a month has passed but I still want to get these up so I have them in here. Anyhoo - this particular event is Kenny's birthday.

My sister, Amanda, had arranged for a huge party to go and eat sushi at Takashi's on the day of Kenny's birthday, April 4th. However, there was a major miscommunication there and they could not and would not seat a party that big at this place. So while Amanda and Kenny and a few stragglers were still making their way through traffice, Paul and I went to Shogun's, which is right by Takashi's on Main Street, to see if we could get in there. Not easy to do on a Saturday night but they were able to split us into two groups right next to each other (which even Takashi's wouldn't do). It took awhile to get all these arrangements together and Amanda was getting pretty bent out of shape because, well, she wanted everything to work out for Kenny. She was finally able to breathe a little when we were all seated!

(That would be Amanda and Kenny there in the middle standing up.)

Paul and I hate sushi, as does most my family. Morgan was brave enough to try it for the first time - some he liked, some he didn't - but the rest of us all went with teriyaki and tempura. We get a lot of crap for that from Amanda cuz she doesn't understand why anyone doesn't like sushi, but come on. It's raw fish. How hard is that to understand?

Anyhoo! We had a grand ol' time in the restaurant - it was pretty chaotic with our huge party and another huge party right next to us. It was really fun though and afterward, most everyone went over to Kristauf's for drinks and dancing (we went for the dancing, of course, but there wasn't much of that so we left soon after).

We also got together on Sunday for dinner and cake and ice cream, this time with the parents and the young'uns. Kenny got a proper 'Madsen' birthday song and we all laughed and had good times.

(Clockwise from top: Benny giving the thumbs-up, Kenny and Amanda laughing at the birthday cards, everyone squishing in together for family bonding, and Gaven gracing us all with a little Jack Johnson.)

And finally, Amanda and Kenny became officially engaged that same Sunday, earlier in the morning. We learned that poor Kenny had the whole thing planned out to propose to her the night before at dinner with all of his family, her family and their closest friends together in one place. But when we couldn't get in to Takashi's...that changed everything. And then we were seated in two groups at Shogun and he didn't want to propose at only one table when the rest of us were near but not really in superior hearing and viewing distance. And he had one last hope for Kristauf's but it was so crowded and loud in there by the time we all were in that it just wasn't going to work out. I felt super bad for him - it would have been really cute! Instead, he proposed while they were alone that next morning (Bronsynn had slept over at my mom's, of course) and she came to dinner with a friggin' paper weight for an engagement ring. Seriously! it's over 3 karat's! It hurts your eyes, it's just that shiny! And it's very, very pretty. She's a lucky (spoiled) girl!