what a JOYful birthday!

Yesterday was great. We came into work and Ayumi had snuck into the office the night before and left gifts on our desks for each of us- flowers and japanese hand mirrors! We went to lunch with her at Pret right across the plaza and then came back to work and finished out the day, and then headed back to the apartment to meet up with the flatmates.

For dinner, we decided to go to the Texas Embassy, after AJ (that is Auntie Jinger who is MJ's {miss joy} sister and our bestie Kelley's aunt for those of you that don't know them) suggested that we try it out. They got the atmosphere and music just right, and it was definitely the closest thing we have encountered to Texas so far. The only music they played was country, so we heard Shania, LeAnn, Garth, Reba, Brooks & Dunn, Dolly...it was perfect! The food was far superior to our first encounter with European Tex-Mex at Chiquitos, but we are still looking forward to the real thing when we get home! Thanks for the recommendation, Auntie Jinger!! After dinner we wandered around London for a while, and then headed to TigerTiger where Kyla and Nikki showed us all up with their amazing dance skills. Since it was a Tuesday the club was pretty tame (except for some Swedish girls and a large number of 40 year old creepers), and all of us had to work, so we left by 12:30 thinking the tube would still be running. We were wrong. So after asking at least 6 different people for directions, we made it back to the flat in about 1.5 hours by walking and taking the night bus. It would have been a 15 minute tube ride, but oh well, it was an adventure.

So anyways, we had a great birthday, but missed celebrating it with all of our friends and family! There will plenty of time for that when we get back though. Thanks for everyone's emails, phone calls, facebook messages, and to Justin (margherio- our friend from Tulsa) for sending us hilarious snail mail birthday cards- we loved them all!! We miss y'all!