Recap: My Birthday Weekend

I had the best weekend ever!!!!! 

Friday night wasn't anything super exciting. When I got home from work, I helped Nick prepare for his poker night.  Once all of his friends arrived, I headed upstairs to the office with my work laptop to do some work for a few hours.  Exciting, I know.  Sure, I'd have loved to celebrated my birthday that night with Nick, but I knew he really wanted a poker night so what would it matter?  I mean, realistically I was getting him the rest of the weekend so what was one night?  And they all had a lot of fun so it was worth it (And Nick won so I guess that is a positive too!)  Plus, I scored a bottle of wine (in a fancy, glittery bag) out of the deal because one of Nick's friends (whom I had only met once before) heard it was my birthday and brought me wine.  Good man.  Good man.

Saturday morning we lounged around in bed for a long time.  It's one of our favorite things to do. No rush, no need to be up.  Just laying there, cuddling, talking, and laughing (yuck, I know).  We eventually got our butts out of bed, got ready, and headed to the Jacksonville Zoo!!!!!!  Maybe that sounds lame to you, but I'm a giant kid at heart and this kind of thing is the perfect date for me.

Sadly, the zoo was a little bit of a letdown.  Don't get me wrong, Nick and I had a lot of fun, but I was expecting more.  I never really realized how awesome the St. Louis Zoo is.  How large it is, the number of animals they have, the look and feel of the Zoo itself, plus the habitats and exhibits.  I know it's rated #3 in the country and Jax Zoo isn't rated at all, but I was just expecting more.  I mean, they don't even have tigers!!!!!!  What is that crap?!  I also was not used to paying.  St. Louis Zoo is 100% free.  We paid $15 each for this zoo.  Lame sauce!

But like I said, despite being a little let down, we had a great time.  They didn't have tigers, but they did have a baby jaguar that was so incredibly playful.  We stood there watching them for a good 20-30 minutes.

We also got to pet stingrays.  I have never pet one (although one came swimming right by us in Pensacola Beach but that wasn't so fun considering it's stinger was very much in tact) and it was really weird.  They're soft and slimy. I knew they weren't going to hurt me, but every time I saw more than one swimming towards my hand, I kinda freaked a little.

We also got the pleasure of seeing two lions doing it.  Don't worry, I took a video :)  (The ant eaters were also going at it but who wants to see such a hideous animal having sex?  I opted out of capturing that one.  You're welcome.)  Please take note of the male lion roaring/moaning as he's getting it.

After the zoo, we headed to play some indoor, black light miniature golf.  I love mini-golf and since it started raining, our plan worked out perfectly!!!  Of course, I lost, but I was the only one to get a hole in one!

After golf, we ran home, changed clothes, grabbed some food and wine and headed over to Jenny and Matt's house.  She was hosting a small get together for my birthday.

(she makes the best cake pops!)

  I remember a while ago, Jenny had mentioned to Nick that she had an idea for my birthday and wanted to talk to him about it.  I figured this gathering was that idea.  But what she really talked to him about was much more awesome!  While sitting and talking, she asked if I wanted my present. I didn't know I had a present waiting for me, so she had Matt get it.  He set this giant box on the table and handed me a knife to cut it open.  When I lifted the top of the box, it's like unicorns and fairies came flying out to the sound of angels singing as this was staring at me

I have been wanting one of these for soooooooo long!  Nick has always said no because he said it's not a necessity and he thinks it's stupid expensive.  He is obsessed with bread so I tried telling him how much awesomeness I could make to fill his bread loving belly.   No dice.  Didn't work.  

Attempt number two: Jenny makes delicious pretzels that he loves and I told him that if I had a KitchenAid mixer, I could make those pretzels.  He said he'd just settle for eating them whenever Jenny made them. So the next step was to demand Jenny stop telling him when she makes them, sending him home with some, etc.

Jenny has even tried to help me convince Nick of all the reasons we needed one.  And it finally worked!  She presented the idea of going in on it with him for my birthday and he agreed.  So now I'm a proud owner of this beauty.  I told Nick has a thank you, the first thing I will make are Jenny' pretzels.  (Yes, I know I can make it without a mixer, but who the heck wants to knead dough?  Not I!)

So can you say best husband and friend ever?!  I have to find some major way to make this up to to Jenny.  (And now I understand why when we were in TJ Maxx's check out line, Nick pointed to one of these, a red one, and said "Don't they have that in a lot of colors.  What color would you want?"  I didn't think anything of it (since he's so against owning one) as I explained silver of course, to match all our stainless steel appliances and other gadgets).

After the present, we made our way to the dining room for the most fun of the night.  Loaded Questions.  If you're easily offended, a prude, or not mildly inappropriate, it's best to not play with us.  The game gets pretty vulgar and ridiculous. But that's what makes it the most fun!!!  My face and abs hurt so badly by the time we packed up and headed home at 1:45am.  It was seriously the best part of the night. I am so thankful for such amazing friends.  Not because they gathered together for my birthday, but because we're all so alike, have way too many laughs, and we all love the same wine ;) (which we consumed quite a few bottles of) I am already looking forward to our Christmas party (or next gathering) to play the game again!!!!!!

I don't even know why we bother with the board.  I don't think we play correctly and even after someone "wins", we continue to draw cards and play.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day.  I headed out to spend my birthday money on a few small items needed for work and when I returned, we got to work on the house.  Nick wanted to organize the garage so we could pull the Accord in while we were out of town for Thanksgiving.  He did a pretty good job considering in about one hours time, the garage went from this to this:

(excuse the crappy iPad quality photos)

Sadly, my dining room now looks like this because he brought in a bunch of boxes that need to be organized and unpacked in the house :(

The other things I wanted for my birthday were to get the curtains hung on the patio door (so the boogeyman can't see me at night and so that I can walk around in my undies) and get some photos hung.  However, stupid me decided to wash our curtains because they kinda smelled like dog and dust....and they shrank :(  I had been wanting new ones because puppy Yadi and Vino have put tiny holes and runs in them when they were little so I guess now I have a legit excuse to buy new ones.  But for now, these will do. 

After the hanging of things (by Nick, of course, because I don't have the patience to measure.  I just slap things up and keep putting in new holes until the space looks even) and dinner (and some arguing, dirty looks, and eye rolls), we grabbed a bottle of wine and took ourselves a nice bubble bath.  I've always been a bath-hater and haven't taken one in over 10 years.  But that's a story for another post.  Anyway, we filled the tub with bubbles, settled in, poured some wine, and enjoyed the rest of our night (with a ridiculous Weim that can't ever not be involved in something.  This night, it was watching us, confused (because we don't take baths) and eating our bubbles.)

And that's my awesome birthday weekend with an awesome husband and awesome friends.

It seems everyone else had a great weekend that same weekend.  I saw lots of statuses and tweets about holiday decorating.  I'm being good and will hold off until after Thanksgiving.  But it's been hard.  And I'm way jealous of you all who got to sit on your couches and enjoy views of lit Christmas trees and decorations before Thanksgiving.  I joined you all this week.  Kind of.  My tree is up and lit.  But there's no ornaments, no tree skirt.  No decorations.  OH! I do have my new fabulous Christmas scent.  Y'all, it's the best Christmas scent ever!!  Head out to Wal-Mart and buy it.  Yes, I said Wal-Mart.  It's worth it.  It's the perfect blend of spiced apple and pine scents.  I have it burning in my Scentsy's throughout the house.  I plan to go back and buy many, many more.  Just in case they don't bring this scent back next year.