I'm 23!

8.23.08

This past Thursday, August 21st, was my 23rd birthday so I decided the best way to celebrate 1. being home in my motherland and 2. the day of my birth was to be together with fantastic friends and family. Taran, my younger cousin on my mother's side, also had a birthday coming up so we decided to have a joint celebration. It turned out to be quite a fun event and several family members and friends showed up for the fun. Of course, we made a lot of food and I even had a chance to make some authentic Japanese food for my family and friends to try. I made a choice of salmon and wakame (seaweed) or sesame seed onegiri (rice balls), miso soup (with tofu, onions and potatoes), and Ryoji's famous avocado cucumber salad. Everyone bravely tried each of the dishes and many people seemed to really like them. We also had a chopstick race where players had to use only chopsticks to move as many gummy bears from one cup to the next as fast as they could. If I'm not mistaken, Miranda and Carolyn tied the game! They even beat me!

Kate and Ali helped my mother and I set up for the party.

Grandma and Grampa (or as they affectionately like to be called "Gram and Grumps")

me and Ham (Alyssa)

From left to right: Aunt Rita, Mom Hensen, Uncle Rob, Taran, Aunt Deb, my mother, Miranda, Carolyn

If I could choose any cake in the world to eat everyday for the next year, I would choose carrot cake. It is my favorite type of cake, but I'm sure many of you already know, it is much more probable that I would choose ice cream over cake when given a choice (in general). For this party, I decided to make vegan carrot cake from the recipe in the Binghamton University Food Coop Cookbook. In my opinion, it turned out very delicious and I think everyone else was in agreement. In this picture, my mother is helping us cut the cake. If you look closely you can see Mark Turley behind her. Also in this picture is Kate, Ali, Taran, Mom Hensen, and Carolyn.

This was taken just after the gummy bear race. Miranda and Carolyn were the first to finish moving their 10 gummies from one cup to the next using only a pair of chopsticks.

Random Shout Out: I would like to thank Kate, Ali and Mark for traveling so far just to come visit me! What a great birthday present to have such amazing friends like you. :)