Best birthday weekend
EVER! I wish I remembered to take photos of everything... I'm so bad when it comes to capturing happy moments of
my life. When it comes to
other people I'm the one with the camera snapping away.
Pssst! I apologize in advance for grammar, spelling, length, etc, I am sooo tired! But I feel like I need to write out just what happen on this perfect/amazing weekend!
Thursday: My coworkers surprised me with a party! There was a fruit platter, cookie platter, cupcakes and a cheesecake! Cheesecake is my
favorite kind of cake; I put some strawberries on it...
divine! One of my coworkers- who is the most generous/selfless person you could ever think of- gave me a card (she had everyone sign it), a 5" cake for me and my fiancé, and a bouquet. Then after work my fiancé gave me part of my birthday present. It was a charger for our GPS (the old one broke) and a fitted sunshade for our car. We have needed these items forever, and I was super pumped to get them. (I love practical gifts, I get excited about receiving socks at Christmas time :P) Then he said we would need them for our trip... and left it at that! Oh and did I mention he picked up an Orchard Chicken Salad from Subway for dinner that night? Because he did! I have wanted to try that sammich since I saw a billboard for it a month ago. He really does listen! :D
Friday: I woke up, worked out, ate breakfast, and my fiancé and I were off on an adventure by 8:00am! He had me guessing where we were going the entire ride! But when we were about half way there, I figured out where we were going... Myrtle Beach! Our first stop was the Candy Barrel in the Tanger Outlets, we picked up some old timey-wimey candy like chick-o-sticks, salt water taffy, sour gummies, etc. Did you know they make hot chick-o-sticks? Was it over priced? Yes on both accounts; but boy were they
good! Oh I guess I should let you know that I am a cheap @$$ and I LOVE sweets! Just so you can try to understand the magnitude of awesome of this weekend. XP Then we shopped around at Forever 21 and Aeropostale - picked up hot pink shorts for $5, shoes for $2 and socks for $.50. Can you say AWESOME?!? I totally changed into the hot pink shorts and wore them all day. :D
After the outlets we went to Broadway at the Beach and stopped at the Pepper Palace where they let you sample all of the hot sauces and salsa they carry. Delicious! For the last sample we tried their Nasal Napalm- it lives up to the name! Oh WOW it was HOT, but only for a few minutes, then I was good. After we picked up some goodies we stopped into Froyz, because they had a wheel you could spin for coupons. My fiancé won a free 4oz and I won a $1 off, but you had to spend $3 before the coupon kicked in... We looked at the flavors and nothing stood out to us so we grabbed two crowns, put them on and left. :P My fiancé was such a good sport about EVERYTHING. After walking around for a bit we stopped into The Fudgery and the nice lady at the counter let us sample everything there. Then we went into Reigning Cats and Dogs. They had a stegosaurus costume that I have wanted to buy for our dog, and it was 50% there! Bought that piece of awesome, walked around some more, stopped into River Street Sweets, grabbed a couple more goodies and it was lunch time!
We retired our crowns, and had agedashi tofu, gyoza, and negimaki at SoBaya Japanese Bistro. It was alright. My fiancé loved it, but I've had better. :) Then for dessert we stopped at Croissants Bistro and Bakery and had a chocolate dipped macaroon and a fruit tart. OMG, it was the best tart I have ever eaten hands down! After lunch it was off to Barefoot Landing.
We walked around the shops, bought some sweets from Wee R Sweetz, mmm chocolate dipped cherries and chocolate covered candy corn... But don't get the grab bags, the white chocolate covered pretzel in there was totally stale. It was pretty funny to try and bite through though! Sampled some more hot sauce at Southwest Pepper Place and took the old, rickety, wooden bridge that was the "wildlife walk" to Alligator Adventure. We were going to go, but when I saw it was $19.99 per person, I said ummm no thank you! As we were traversing the wildlife walk my fiancé joked about how if an alligator were to jump out he would push me away to save me... Well the bridge must have creaked or moved in a spooky manner and he grabbed me to him. So I teased him about that the rest of the night. :) I conversed with a camel for a little while; meaning I waved at him and spoke to him like he was a doogie. :P He seemed to like it though, because when I started walking away he made sad camel noises. Or maybe they were good riddance noises? Either way I had a hankering for some more sweets.
Our next stop was Coccadotts- which have been featured on Cupcake Wars, GMA, Food Network- he got Maple Bacon, I got Amaretto. Mine was okay. There is a cupcake company called SWEETS near where we live and it's
really hard to top their cupcakes! After that we headed towards the Market Commons. We walked around for a little bit but decided it was late and headed home. Our poor puppy probably missed us to death! Translation: I missed her, she slept all day.
When we got home it was probably 9:00pm and all the sugar that had been keeping me going was starting to wear off. I took the dog out to go potty and when I came back in my fiancé had a "birthday basket" for me! I WISH I TOOK A PICTURE!! But I was so excited to see what he got me that I just dove on in to the basket! What was in there, you ask? All natural strawberry protein powder, popcorn kernels in a glass canning jar, a hot air popcorn popper, Uncharted: Drakes Fortune (video game that everyone jokes plays like a movie), Sailor Mars necklace, Hario Coffee Grinder, Starbucks whole bean coffee, and a TARDIS monitor mate in a lined basket. Which he informed me we could reuse for our dog's toys. XD Did I mention I love practical? AHHH It was too good to be true! Then he gave me a birthday card with a $75 Amazon Gift card in it and a couple of lines from Max Ehrmann's poem Desiderata:
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
I cried. Unabashed tears, I must be the luckiest girl ever. XD!!! I cut myself a slice of cake... half the cake... that my coworker bought us, savored it, then went to bed.
Saturday: Oh it was hard to wake up with all that walking yesterday! I'm pretty sure I put myself in a sugar coma. But today was my actual factual birthday! And that meant FREEBIES! My fiancé and I split all the freebies and basically ate for free everywhere we went. :D It started off at IHOP with a Strawberry Rooty Tooty Fresh & Fruity. So fun to say; even better to eat. :) Then he planned a hike through a local park near us so we could spend some time with our dog. We both felt guilty for leaving her alone for so long the previous day and, let's be honest, we could all use the exercise. :) The hike started off alright. Five minutes in the mosquitoes started to bite me through my shirt, but I said that they would probably leave us alone once we reached a clearing. Five more minutes later we happen upon a
RATTLE SNAKE LAYING ACROSS THE PATHWAY. Thank GOD my dog is excellent with voice commands. So we turned around and said screw it! Mother Nature is clearly telling us to leave! We took the dog home and walked her near our house.
For pre-lunch we stopped at Rita's and grabbed a Black Cherry Cheesecake Italian Ice. I thought there was only one flavor of Italian Ice: lemon. So I was super surprised when there were 10 different flavors to choose from. The girl working there was so nice! She let us try all kinds of flavors, like Swedish Fish. LOVE the candy, but in Italian ice form... not so much... The Black Cherry Cheesecake was sooo good, it had fresh cherries in it! Mmmm... I kept giving myself a brain freeze, passing it to my fiancé, he would get a brain freeze then pass it to me. :P We are such big kids! I LOVE HIM!!!
We got Firehouse Subs' NY Steamer for lunch and finished the day off with a Schlotzsky's Deli BBQ Chicken & Jalapeno Pizza. I LOVE FREE FOOD!! Can everyday be my birthday??
My aunt gave me a gift card to Longhorn Steakhouse
and I have a coupon for a free appetizer! So that is totally going to be lunch tomorrow. XD
And I have a BOGO coupon from Bruster's Real Ice Cream and Cold Stone Creamery. So many decisions! Oh
AND a good friend of mine is going to surprise me with a special Sunday dinner. This really has to be one of the most memorable, best birthdays EVER!!