The Party

After hanging out with just the family at Eric's apartment for a couple of hours, we went back to our hotel to change clothes, after which all five of us squished into Eric's car and drove to a nearby Italian restaurant called Jones (what kind of name is that for an Italian restaurant?). Eric had made reservations for a group of about 15 of his friends and Dad for the evening, so when we got there we had to ask them to add some chairs since more of us had descended upon the party. It was a tight fit with so many people, but it was tons of fun! It was so great to finally meet some of Eric's friends--especially those that I'd heard about so much I felt like I knew already!

We had a nice dinner and a few drinks and just enjoyed chatting with everyone, and then a little while after we'd eaten some other guests dropped by for a surprise too. Dad had also invited our second cousin Rebekah and her husband Josh who live in the area. Although we didn't know Rebekah very well growing up, our dads were first cousins, and Josh and Eric were randomly in a Toyota commercial together several years ago. The way Eric and Rebekah met in LA and discovered they were related is actually a pretty funny story that I should share sometime! Anyway, we had a nice time reconnecting with distant family as well and hearing about what they're up to. Josh and Rebekah just finished writing, directing and producing a short film that you should definitely watch if you have 20 minutes to spare sometime soon. It's called The Butterfly Circus and stars the amazing Nick Vujicic, who's been inspiring me and many others for many years! You can watch the whole thing online here. It's so good I've watched it three times already!

Sorry, I digress--back to the party. Really, after meeting friends, eating, singing happy birthday and watching Eric eat a huge piece of pie and ice cream, it was getting pretty late. By about 10:30 or so (we didn't arrive until 8--those LA people eat so darn late) Chad and Mom and I were getting darn tired. We finally had Dad take us back to our hotel at about 11, at which point we'd been awake for 19 hours. We'd gotten up at 3 a.m. California time and only slept 4 hours the night before, so it was really quite amazing we made it as late as we did!

Eric and his friends stayed until closer to 1 a.m., and Eric said more people showed up even after we left. It was a pretty amazing turnout for his 40th considering he didn't send out an email invite until the day before!