Happy Birthday Daniel!

My little brother Daniel turned 22 at the end of August.  Dan has a special place in my heart.  He moved in with us a couple of months after our Dad passed away, and has lived with us for the past year and a half.  Once we bought a house we mutually decided that it was time for him to get his own place.     Most of the time this kid drives me crazy, and I get really annoyed when he's around so frequently...but the truth is, I miss him when he's gone. (Sorry for the pic, I had just gotten done with a late night work out...training for a half marathon is going to be the death of me...more on that to come later...)

  As far as the Block side of the family goes, he and I are all that we have here in Texas.  Most of the time when we talk about our Dad it is in a joking manner, something he used to say or do...or some way he would always make us laugh.  But other times, we have break downs together...when we miss him so much we just can't take it anymore, and no one seems to understand but us.  It's pretty pathetic that my baby brother is the one comforting me.  I should be the one comforting him, I'm his big sister! 

Daniel is the only brother of mine I was really old enough to remember him being born.  As the baby in a family of five kids, he was babied in every sense of the word.  Everyone did everything for him, half of the time we just assumed it was because he couldn't...or didn't know how.  As an adult I can really see the negative impact it has had on him.  My parents, my siblings,  and I essentially crippled him, never allowing him to do anything on his own. He's grown up a lot since moving out to Texas, and finally leaving the nest.  He's a very hard worker, and has excelled at his job.  I never lived alone, I went straight from college with roommates to being married, and so I think it's really great that he is being so independent. He has surprised us many times with how capable he is at being all on his own.  Sean and I are both so proud of him.

Sean is such an amazing brother-in-law to Daniel.  They talk more than Dan and I do half the time.  Sean will stay up late playing XBOX360 with him, take him golfing, go to the church and play basketball, or just sit and talk while they watch ESPN.  I'm so thankful that Sean has been so supportive and really has taken Dan under his wing.

Dan worked late the night of his birthday, and didn't get off until about 11:30.  We still wanted to make his birthday as special as we could for him, so we stayed up late and had ice cream cake, sang happy birthday, and got him a present.  I knew he wouldn't really have any other birthday celebration, and so we really wanted to do something for him.  Being a grown up and working on your birthday isn't the funnest thing ever....I can relate.

Daniel doesn't work on Mondays, so every Monday he and I meet for lunch.  We always go to the same philly cheese-steak place down the street from my office, Fred's Philly.  We are such regular customers they don't even take our order anymore, they just start cooking our sandwiches as soon as we pull up.  Now that's what I call service!  Every Monday when we go to Fred's Philly Dan talks about how much he wants one of their t shirts.  So, that's what I got him for his birthday present (sorry, I know it's a little crude).  He loved it. 

Happy Birthday Daniel, we love you!