Surprise!

Got her again.
Sure it had been awhile, so she should have suspected a big surprise.
But for some reason she didn't, and I struck.
We've been working hard and long, which helped create the impression that I hadn't had time, and had possibly even forgotten, to make any plans for her b-day.
But thanks to a few of her multi-faceted friends diversified across other professions with slightly less demanding hours at the moment, I was able to pull off a gathering of pretty much everyone we know in London.
Not sure whether that says more about how many people we know or how big our place is... but regardless, we definitely could not have fit in our old place.
It was a fun collection of people... church, my colleagues, her colleagues, and even neighbors. The food was phenomenal and the decorations inviting.
And some even stayed till the trains stopped running, opting to take a bus in order to stay on for great times and interesting conversation.

All told, we had 9 nationalities present, but the Texas presence was strong thanks to the many emails that I received from back home and had posted on the walls everywhere (some funny, others, well, they were open to interpretation)

I'm glad everyone pitched in to help me be able to stall until Saturday to actually go and find her a present.

I think she's starting to get used to being a quarter of a century old, but she still doesn't like me saying so. But I bet she still reads the Scientific American magazine I bought her, which had the headline: "Can DNA stop time?"

Time hasn't stopped here... and almost all of it is spent at work for the time being.

But at least for one evening, we were able to forget about that and pretend like we were back in college.