30th Birthday Weekend, Part 2: Me 'n Eds Pizzeria

The last part of my birthday celebration took place at Me 'n Eds Pizzeria in Lakewood, CA, close by to our home. Friends and family gathered for some awesome pizza and beer. This little pizzeria is a franchise found in California and Canada but has a real neighborhood feel. Tables are picnic benches, local little leagues have their team dinners there, and live music is usually featured there on the weekends. We highly recommend the thin crust over the thick crust because the thin crust is crispier and faster to bake than the thick crust.

Afterwards, we went back to our house and had couple of different kinds of cake I baked earlier that day. I got some awesome gifts, as well! Allison bought me a customized apron that says "Brian H. Lo, The Master Baker, Chef, and Griller". This thing rocks! In addition, she gave me a real nifty cookbook holder, which I have put to some serious use. We spent the evening enjoying desserts and hearing others swapping stories about me. It was neat hearing different peoples' stories and what they think of when they think of me.

Overall, it was a fun thirtieth birthday and I don't fell much different than before. The three-oh isn't a bad place to be.

30th Birthday Weekend, Part 1: Color Me Mine

We celebrated my 30th birthday this past weekend with a host of activities. On Friday night, Allison and I decided we would spend Saturday at Color Me Mine. It's an art studio where you can decorate your housewares like bowls, dishes, mugs, etc. I noticed this studio one evening while we were out. I don't think I'm the most creative of people but this place just seemed kinda cool and fun to try.

Allison, my bro's family, my dad, and I went to the studio and only me, Allison, Jean, and my two nieces decided to do it. My dad wasn't interested and made himself at home in his usual hang out: Starbucks. Garrett was a little intrigued in the idea of making something, but got caught up with daddy duty as his littlest one needed a nap and required the use of the daddy pillow, Garrett. Allison and I chose to paint rice bowls and Jean did a plate. It took me forever to pick out a color scheme, but I eventually settled on kiwi and honeycomb.

After I had my color scheme, I went to work. I basically shut myself off to the world and painted. After I finished painting the bowl, I took a chance and tried to draw a picture of bamboo on the inside and outside of the bowl. The outside turned out to resemble a bundle of hay and the inside one looked like a lane divider. I tried to salvage the effort by dotting the hay and divider to make it look like there were leaves on them, but I wasn't quite able to capture the right look. Oh well, I tried and enjoyed doing it. We get the fired and finished wares back on Thursday.

New Garden

Over the past few months, Allison and I have been thinking about planting a garden in our backyard and today, that plan came to fruition. We went to the nursery and purchased tomato, strawberry, and zucchini plants and came home and planted them right away. It was a whole lot of fun as I've always wanted to have a garden and it's always a treat to do something with Allison. We're excited to see what it will produce in the coming months.

BUI

Ever since we got a KitchenAid Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer I have begun to bake like crazy. I've learned how to bake zucchini bread, banana-chocolate chip bread, carrot cake, and coffee cake. I never knew how much fun baking could be and how easy it is, especially with the KitchenAid. Originally, Allison put the KitchenAid on our gift registry and it's turned out that I've used it more than her!

Tonight, at dinner I had a can of Sapporo Beer (I'm beginning to develop a taste for Japanese beer from a Japanese izakaya me and Allison frequent) and consequently was feeling quite good at the end of the meal. After dinner, I decided to bake another batch of zucchini bread for the coming week. Just after I started baking, I realized I mixed the wrong ingredients together! Then I realized I was BUI (Baking Under the Influence). Alcohol can not only impair your driving ability, it can impair your baking ability.

Inclusive Language Meets Household Chores

One of Fuller's core values is its recognition of women in ministry. One of the ways this value is expressed is through its policy of using nondiscriminatory (inclusive) language within the seminary. Fuller believes that using words like 'men' and 'he' as generic terms have been used to discriminate against women, because these words do not intrinsically include women. Therefore, everyone within the bounds of Fuller needs to use language that includes all people. Instead of 'men', we write 'human' or for 'him', we use 'they'. We try to include everyone in our communications.

The Catalyst, the on-campus student lounge, has a kitchen for students. One day, as I was washing my dishes I noticed a hand written note above the sink. It said "Please wash your dishes! Your mother doesn't live here!" Then I noticed a second person added 'daddy' above 'mother' and wrote, "Now, now, let's not forget to be inclusive."