Birthday

My birthday was last weekend.  It was, by far, the best birthday I've ever had. 

On most birthdays, I either hang out with my friends, or I go and visit my family.  The reason I enjoyed this birthday so much is because I was able to spend it with my brothers AND several of my closest friends. 

My brothers both flew in last Friday night and stayed with me over the weekend.  We met up with several of my friends on Friday night and went to a Schaumburg Flyers game.  The weather was awesome and we had great seats, in the first 3 rows, along the 3rd base line.  One of the greatest things about going to a Flyers game is that even the best seats only cost about ten bucks.

After the game, we went to Wildfire for dinner.  It is one of my favorite restaurants.  I've eaten there several times, and I don't think I've ever had a bad experience there.

On Saturday, we took a Metra train  into Chicago.  We spent the afternoon at Navy Pier, listening to some of the bands there and watching the Air & Water show.  Afterward, we went to see The Lion King.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  The show was incredible! The tickets were more expensive than any tickets I've ever purchased for anything, but the show was well worth it.  After the play my good friend, Adrien picked us up and took us to a pizza place in Lincoln Park.  We hung out there for a while and then took the train back to my place.

So we did a lot of fun things for my birthday.  But far more important than all the cool places we went and activities we participated in was a lesson that I was reminded of.  I had painstakingly planned almost every minute of our weekend.  My plan was to make the most of the few days I had together with my brothers by filling every minute with some type of fun activity.  Don't get me wrong -- all the cool stuff we did and places we went were awesome -- I wouldn't change any of that.  But some of the best time we spent together was when we were just sitting on the train or riding around in the car with Adrien. 

The bottom line is that it all comes down to spending quality time with quality people.  As corny as it may sound, there is nothing better than spending time with people who care about you.  We could've just as well have been doing pretty much anything and it probably still would've been fun because we were hanging out together.