My birthday celebration started early the week before when Ranee invited us to the winery at Jack London Square last Friday evening. It was a gorgeous evening with lots of sparkling wine to sip and taste.

Ranee also got us a bottle of sparkling rose to share. The kids played on the lawn all evening and we got to sit and unwind.

If that wasn’t fun enough already, we got to hang out AGAIN the following night!

We dropped the kids off at Jimmy and Eleen’s house (thanks guys!) and took an Uber to the city. We had tickets to see JANET!!!

We had purchased these tickets months ago and the Chase Center just opened a few weeks ago.

It was so nice to see Ishya smiling after the passing of her mom (my aunt).

Janet was awesome and sang what seemed like ALL HER SONGS.

The Chase Center was on their feet and he had such a good time.

The following week, we flew down to Cerritos to celebrate the actual birthday with Brother who turned 40!!

We had a family dinner at Lawry’s and then went out for dessert at David Chang’s milk bar.

The following night, we went to see Ali Wong at The Wiltern.

Interestingly, she had a strict no-device rule. We had to go through security at the entrance and lock our phones and smart watches in a bag that we carry around with us but can’t unlock until the show is done. It was a fun experiment and reminder of how things used to be when we were younger and didn’t have cell phones.

Ali was really funny and so was the guy that opened for her! Good show.

My last bit of birthday fun was the day after when we arrived back in Alameda. Just the 4 of us went out for Korean BBQ and stuffed ourselves silly.