Yesterday was Sam's 25th birthday! Even though he's getting so old, we managed to have a lot of fun. :) The day started with a breakfast of creme brulee french toast, grapes, and orange juice.
Then I dropped him off at his lab. He was under the impression that I needed to use the car to run some errands. But then I parked and came up to his lab. (Although, it was in a rather roundabout fashion...after being lost and enlisting the help of more than a few people, it was discovered that he was in a lab meeting, so we waited for him to get out for about an hour! The sequence of events was rather hilarious, actually. We had a good laugh about it all when I finally found him more than 2 hours after I dropped him off.) I had cookies for the lab, and they all loved meeting "little Sam." It was fun to see his domain and meet the people he has told me so much about.
We picked him up at 6:30 and headed home, where we had his birthday dinner--enchiladas with lettuce, tomatoes, green onions, refried beans, and sour cream/lime with fruit salsa and baked cinnamon sugar tortilla strips and Brazilian Lemonade. Can you tell his favorite kind of food is Mexican?
After dinner he opened presents, and then we had peanut butter cup cake with Ben & Jerry's ice cream! I think we both felt a little sick to our stomachs when all was said and done. We could only handle a small spoonful of ice cream each!
Since it was his 25th birthday, I thought it would be fun to post 25 random facts about him (much to his chagrin, I'm sure).
1. He absolutely loves peanut butter. When we met, he was pretty much living on Raisin Bran, Cheerios, bananas, and peanut butter sandwiches. He pours honey directly into the jar, stirs it around, and either eats it straight or piles it on bread. He was going through 2 jars of peanut butter per week when we met!
2. He is very conscientious about punctuality. If he's not plenty early, then he feels like he's late. He has made me so much better at being on time.
3. He is actually a really good artist. He doesn't draw much, but whenever he makes me cards or doodles something, I am always amazed at his artistic abilities.
4. He taught himself to play the Hymns on the piano.
5. His first words were "thank you." No joke!
6. When we first got married, he ate more than I ever knew was possible. There are 7 kids in my family, and we had to make dinner once each week. So I was used to making enough food to feed all of us. I thought I was going to have to figure out how to change and make only enough food for 2, but I soon found out that I still needed to make the same amount of food! His metabolism is through the roof! I don't think he eats quite as much now, but maybe I've just gotten used to it.
7. He got his associates degree in Computer Engineering, his bachelors degree in Molecular Biology, and is now pursuing his PhD in Cancer Biology.
8. He served in the Peoria, Illinois mission.
9. When he gets tired, his eyes make noises like bubbles popping. It is really bizarre!
10. When he was a baby, random people in the store would give his mom money because they thought he was so cute!
11. He was born in Dallas, Texas, but moved to Utah when he was about 3 and lived there until we moved to Houston.
12. His favorite movie is Ben-Hur.
13. Although he doesn't get much time to read, he does love to read. He loves books that he can pick up, read a paragraph or a page or two, and then think about it for a while. He finds himself reading complete books by just reading one random page every few days. He loves books that make you think, such as books by C. S. Lewis, books on Church doctrine, biographies, etc.
14. He loves playing with little kids.
15. He made his own mission scrapbook.
16. He is quite funny in his sleep. He frequently talks about complex biology concepts or declares how much he loves me. I usually just play along with whatever he is saying.
17. When he gets home, he is almost always so hot that he immediately changes into pajamas and a T-Shirt. I realized that he is wearing his pajamas in many of the pictures I have taken of him! He really does wear normal clothes, I promise...
18. His favorite vegetable is an onion...a RAW onion. He loves to put onions on just about any kind of dinner food, from sandwiches to pasta to potatoes to chicken to rice. It helps that they have amazing cancer-fighting properties, too. But he is nice to me and refrains from eating them too frequently. :)
19. He loves wearing his socks half-way on. His toes get cold if he has bare feet, but his feet get hot if he wears socks. So he just wears them around the front half of his feet, the rest of the sock just dangling empty in front of him. It is quite a comical sight to see.
20. His favorite weather is rainy.
21. His favorite colors are green and brown, because they remind him of nature.
22. He learned Spanish from teaching an English class on his mission.
23. He is very health conscious.
24. He worked for a temp job agency right after his mission, before the new semester started, and one of the jobs they had him do was dress up as a gorilla and deliver boxes of goodies to various companies without saying a word. Imagine how unnerving it would be to have a 6'4" gorilla enter your office and hand you a box without saying a word! He got some very funny reactions.
25. He loves to sleep with pillows piled on top of him.
Happy Birthday, Sam!!!
