He's not 40, it's the 21st anniversary of his 19th birthday...

Well today is my brother's big 4-0 birthday! Yes, for long-time readers, I refer to him as Ugly...I always have, and I always will. I found this picture on a Google search, and it pretty much fits my brother to a T. ;)

Anyways, last night his wife arranged a surprise birthday party for him at the Mandarin restaurant. Since it's his 40th birthday, she invited 40 people who mean a lot to him. He was totally blown away when he turned the corner and saw 5 tables full of people waiting for him. He knew that my mom and I were there because her friend has a personalized license plate, but he had no idea about the rest of them.

Of course, there was also a cake...mmmm cake. It was one of those picture cakes, I don't know if any of you have seen them, but they print a picture on top of the cake in icing. The picture looked like Ugly was around 5 or 6 years old at the time, and the resemblance to his son was incredible.

After dinner a friend of L's (Ugly's wife) got into our car and my brother looked at us quizzically and asked where we were taking her. We told him that she needed a ride somewhere, because her boyfriend had some people downtown. He let that go, thought nothing more of it and we went on our way...to his second surprise party.

Ugly, L, and a couple of friends went back to his place and they started watching the hockey game. L said she wanted to go to a bar, listen to some music and just relax.

He bought it.

Her original plan, if he gave her a hard time was to ask him to name some bars, she would write them down on pieces of paper and stick them in a hat...but she would write down the same name on each piece. :P

They got to the bar, he saw a couple friends standing outside having a cigarette and just thought it was a coinkydink that they were there, or maybe a few people were there for a little party. He walked in and there were about 20-30 more people in there. We had part of the bar sectioned off just for his party. I think he was even more blown away by that...there were people at the party he hadn't seen since high school. Somehow, his wife tracked down his old high school buddies and they were there.

Anyways, it's also my brother-in-law's (D - Josh's brother) birthday today! He turns the big 33. He came into town for Passover, but he leaves on Wednesday. Hopefully we'll see him a few times before he goes back to NYC.