Dinner out with the parents

My company recently decided to start giving out 5 year service awards (an award for having achieved five years of tenure with the company). Of course I've been with them over 5 years, so I was given an award retroactively. The award included an American Express Gift Card to be used for a nice dinner out.

Last night I invited my parents to go out with Lars and myself. We went to Santana Row, the shopping district near my house, and went to a French restaurant called Left Bank. Unfortunately the wait time for a table was long (it was Friday night after all), but the food was very good.

This was the first time in a few months that I've had the chance to have dinner with my parents given my travel schedule and being sick with the flu. It also gave me a chance to catch up on my dad's condition. He's been off chemo for a week now, so this week was his first blood test not on a chemo cycle. Because of this (and not unexpectedly so), his CEA count was higher, up to about 168 from about 70 the prior week. He's on a four week break from chemo, that will stretch out to a five week break (since he's going on a trip to the east coast in his fourth week).

My mom and dad will join Marie on a trip to New York for Marie's friend Gail's wedding. I think it'll be their first trip to New York in quite a while.

In case you've forgotten, I'm off to Beijing tomorrow morning, but will be back on Friday. It's a quick trip, but there's definitely lots of work for me to do while I'm there.