birthday ice cream surprise

Ok. So, of course, if you know me, you know I love food, especially ice cream. One block away from the convention center was the North Market, which is a lot like Pike's Place in Seattle. It had delicious foods, groceries and eateries. I had pasta, sushi, vietnamese, and ice cream. Lots of ice cream. Jeni's Homemade Ice Cream is more like gelato than ice cream in texture and flavors. They use a gelato machine to make the flavors right there. They seem to specialize in fruity flavors like pear, lemon, mango, grapefruit, blueberry, raspberry and strawberry to name only a few. They also had spicy ice creams like Thai Chili and Chocolate Cayanne, which sounds wierd and tastes wierd at first, but definitely grows on you. I'm proud to say that I've had ice cream that was hot!

I figured if a had a trio (three small scoops of heaven) each day I would get to try at least half of the flavors. I easily reached that goal.

My birthday was Monday, the last day of the show. All the booths around me, knew I loved Jeni's. So, Terri planned a little surprise, despite my protestations. (The surprise birthday is an art in Terri's family.) She had Michelle from Pussy Cats 2 go to Jeni's and bring back a tray with 14 delightful scoops of ice cream. I had just gotten back from wandering around the show, when Michelle walks in with the ice cream and a dozen people I'd just met two days before sing me Happy Birthday, led by Terri and Dad, of course. Now, I'm not much for surprises, but this was nice. And I was definitely surprised. They say the look on my face was priceless. I believe them, because I was nearly tearing.



Thankfully, there were extra spoons and cups so everyone could had a little of the sweetness, because even I couldn't eat 14 scoops of ice cream on my own!