We celebrated Jared’s birthday last night at AFK Tavern. Friday is my usual work from home day, and my husband came home from his work early because he’s sick (he handed me a beautiful bouquet and said, “I got you some plant sex organs.” I love him so!). I had taken a sick day earlier in the week, and come home early myself on Thursday (though I took a short nap, logged in and worked from home for a couple more hours, took a longer nap, then worked some more, then went to bed). So I hadn’t been certain I would go to the party until just before leaving. Michael stayed home, sleeping.

But, a fun time was had by those of us there…

We didn’t quite drown him in Fluttershy Mai Tais, but I bought him one just as he arrived. Scottie bought him one next. Joi pinged me she could send me money to buy him one, so we did. I think he ordered one on his own. Except that J’wyl intercepted his check (and nearly intercepted mine!). We all had a lot of good food, and many Fluttershy Mai Tais (along with other cocktails) were consumed while we chatted, gossiped, and generally were a silly bunch.

I did not get pictures of all of his presents. I roughly a gazillion of him opening the present from us as the present itself was a pony made by Joi the Artist (I need to zip all of those up and mail them to her).

As usual, I stopped thinking about taking pictures as the mai tais flowed and we all laughed and talked. Scotty is in a couple of the pictures of Jared. I only got one picture of J’wyl and Anthony. And Sky kept leaning back out of the frame whenever I was taking pics of Jared, so the most I got was his hand or part of his arm a few times.

This is at least the third year that we’ve celebrated Jared’s birthday on the day itself at the AFK Tavern. It’s a nice way to do something fun on Valentine’s Day, since (as I mentioned earlier) Michael and I usually do a low key observance. And it’s a lot of fun.

If you click to embiggen this one, you’ll see a couple of the other presents he got on the table in front of him: a shot glass with artwork by an artist Anthony introduced several of us to last summer, and a Crystal Empire Rarity toy.

We raised are glasses in a couple of toasts. I got only a so-so picture of that. But we toasted Joi. And we toasted all the other bronies and friends of Jared who couldn’t be with us.

Before I close I should mention that all the pictures in this entry can be clicked for higher resolution versions.

It was fun.

Happy Birthday, Jared!