"You know you're not a kid anymore...

...when you have to work on your birthday."

That's what Dan said to me when he went in to work at 7:00 Monday morning. 

It was his "golden" birthday: he turned 26 on the 26th.

We celebrated that night at 7:30 when he finished work. 

The kids and I took the subway and met him downtown.

We went to The Shake Shack in Madison Square for dinner. 

It is a ridiculously popular burger and shake joint.

(That is not even the whole line. We couldn't fit it all in the picture!)

Vi got a little bit tired of waiting,

until she found a friend and a dog to play with.

Luke was very patient.

(Because he wasn't waiting for his food, of course.)

After 45 minutes, we could almost see the food.

Another twenty minutes and we were able to taste the legendary burgers. 

They were delectable. Juicy, warm, and flavorful, with delightfully soft buns.
I'm not sure I'll ever wait over an hour for a "shack burger" again, 

but I'm glad I did that time. So is Dan.

We ate it all up before we remembered to snap a picture.

Since we got home so late, we didn't have cake until the next day. (Okay, I'll be honest. I hadn't made it yet.) 

I asked Dan what his favorite cake or pie was, and he said, "I don't really get excited about cake or pies." Well, we couldn't just not have a birthday cake, so I picked one of my favorites and made some strawberry cheesecake. That way at least one of us was excited.

Unfortunately, the graham cracker crust was not very good. (Don't ever buy grahams already in crumb form. I couldn't find the regular crackers so I had to.) The rest of the cake tasted great though.

Violet and I made some decorations with our limited art supplies here. Can you tell which letter she colored? That "Y" was originally spotted, and when we taped it up with the others she looked at it and said, "I don't LIKE those dots!" So she colored the Y in. :)

Happy Birthday, Danny. Thanks for working so hard for us! We love you.