Zachary's Birthday

Zachary turned 28 this year. He turned 28 in September, on the 28th to be exact. Yes, I am just now blogging about it. I'm super on top of things. Soooo anyways. Zachary had a great birthday! It started with this monstrosity of a German chocolate cake above. I set out on the mission to make the best German chocolate cake for him ever. While, I did make a cake that was pretty delicious, it was not the best German chocolate cake ever. But It was a different dessert entirely but still good.

Zachary had brought the cake to work on the Friday before his birthday to share with his coworkers.

One of my students, Sherry, who Zachary also teaches at our house, made Zachary this adorable pencil holder with a toilet paper roll & tea taped to it. Haha. Cute.

For Zachary's birthday his parents gave him money & he decided to get a kindle with it. This was a great choice and the best birthday present for him. He uses it everyday now!

I was at a loss as to what to get him so I decided to get him a madge padge of things; cologne, a Cuban cigar, chocolate that i picked out from a fancy chocolate case (fun!), 3rd wave coffee and a new tea to try.

Little Justin brought Zachary some chocolates.

Zachary's first birthday here in Qingdao he got so much chocolate! Everyone here really knows his soft spot for chocolate, even his students.

The night before Zachary's birthday we headed over to Justin & Catherine's house for the boys to exchange presents. Justin's birthday is the day before Zachary's & the boys have celebrated each others birthdays, 3 together and 1 apart, the last 4 years.  Justin, Catherine & Elijah gave Zachary a sweet card, a gift card for a massage, wine & some coffee. 

For Justin's birthday Zachary gave Justin a guitar. Justin had mentioned that he wanted a guitar a few times the past few years & Zachary had been listening & holding that wish in the back of his mind. This year, when I asked Zachary what he wanted to get Justin for his birthday, he immediately said he a guitar! It was a total surprise to Justin. Zachary carried the guitar over in his own guitar case and told Justin that he had a song to play for him. He started playing, looked at the guitar and said, "Wait?! What?! This isn't my guitar!" Haha. And then handed it to Justin.

Elijah also liked the guitar & I must say, looked really cute with it!

The beautiful Esser's on Justin's Birthday.

For dinner on Zachary's birthday, we went to Trattoria Verde, our much loved Qingdao Italian restaurant.

Zachary parking our little bike.

We love the close, coziness of this place.

Also the menu is in Italian, it's legit.

During dinner we read Eclipse. :) We've already Twilight together and are slowly making our way through Eclipse.

Glittery nails for the occasion. :)

Also, raviolis.

And sausage and broccoli pizza.

After dinner we headed to a local coffee shop for more Eclipse reading & celebrating Zachary's birth.

Zachary had a great birthday & we had lots of fun celebrating him. :)