Twenty-Seven

My birthday was a week and a day ago and I'm just getting around to blogging about it, but there's a good reason! It'll be a whole other post, but for now let's just say that I have been incapacitated over the last week.

So on June 3rd, I turned 27, and it was a pretty good day if I do say so myself! Usually I can't get the day off of work but this year I got lucky and had Monday AND Tuesday off. Monday morning I woke up to a bunch of birthday texts and Facebook notifications - not a bad way to start the day! All of the wishes were very nice but I gotta be honest here and say that for sure the cutest birthday text was one that I got from my sister of my bedhead niece duckfacing like a champ!



The text read, "This is KJ's fall out of bed happy birthday to her auntie. XO haha"


I mean.... sorry, everyone else, but it's not even a competition! I couldn't stop laughing at that, that baby just cracks me up. She's basically the most adorable human being alive, haha!

I had received some little gifts earlier in the week - one from my mom/step-dad/brother in the mail, and one from my bestie Tori who brought it to me at work - Clinton kept telling me to open them, but I wanted to wait until my actual birthday! It's more fun that way because you have something to look forward to!

The card from the package my family sent - my brother's note cracks me up! I'm the only sister he's ever had hahaha!

Fluffy little owl (I love owls!), earrings, and a Papyrus card (I got my mom addicted to them!)

Tori knows me so well and spoils me so much! Turquoise necklaces, adorable card, sephora make-up brushes, minty M&M's, and an H&M gift card with a homemade gift card holder - so cute!!

After I opened those, Clinton told me it was time to open up my present(s) from him - he laid out 4 envelopes on the table and gave me #1. I was of course curious to know what was in the other 3, but I happily opened up the 1st one.

Haha! He's so silly, and he knows me so well! I've wanted to buy both of those albums for awhile but I always feel like there are better things to spend money on, or like we should save it instead, so he made it an easy decision for me! He also teases me because I like to do puzzles on my iPad - there are like 50 free ones on the app I use and then you can pay for more, but I would really feel silly spending money on that! So after I opened that he said we should get ready because he had plans for us that day.

Once I got ready and we were in the car ready to leave, he handed me envelope #2 and it cracked me up! Inside of it was a Starbucks reward card that he stole from ME hahaha! It was a gift card that I got awhile ago and I decided to register it for the rewards program because you get a free drink on your birthday! He also knew that I would more than likely be Instagramming the day, so he added his own totally silly hashtags to the birthday card!

#stolen #notreallyfromme #goodwaytostarttheday #iloveyou #happybirthday

After we stopped for coffee (a hazelnut iced latte for me, and a hot vanilla blonde roast for husband!) he took me to an outdoor outlet mall we have here. He said he had originally planned to take me to a different mall, but when he found out that Tori had given me an H&M gift card, he decided to take me there instead because the other one didn't have it and he wanted me to be able to use it. He had to change his plan around a little bit because of different stores, but while we were in the car at the mall before we went in he gave me #3 and #4, both of which were in cards w/ cute, creative messages and had gift cards to my favorite stores. A couple of months ago he asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told him he could take me to Fossil to pick out a watch - so he did that, plus more! And #4 was a gift card to Forever 21 so could pick out some cute seasonal/summery pieces. I am so spoiled!

He told me that usually he thinks gift cards alone are kind of lame, but that his birthday gift to me was to spend the day shopping with me and spoiling me because we haven't been shopping for clothes/shoes/watches, anything like that really, since we are in the middle of trying to save for a house! It was a really nice day! Most guys don't even want to consider going shopping with their girlfriend/wife, but my husband is not most guys. : ) We spent the day shopping and I scored some cute summer shirts, two pieces for work, and a super cute new watch.

The new watch I picked out - isn't it cute?

After shopping he was going to take me to lunch at a restaurant by our apartment, but it turned out they didn't open until suppertime, so instead we just stopped in at this pizza place that happened to be next door and it was so stinking good! The tomatoes were super sweet, and the white pizza had alfredo sauce on it - to die for!

Mmm!

After that he asked me what I wanted to do, and I was feeling really tired (unbeknownst to me at the time, there was more to this than I knew - again, more on that in my next entry!) and wanted to go home and relax for awhile. When we got home I laid out my loot to take a photo, and then downloaded the two albums I wanted and a couple of puzzles to my iPad, then just relaxed on the couch and took a nap.

Summery!

After a couple of hours, Clinton's parents stopped by to have a little mini celebration with me. They brought cake balls and my favorite ice cream, and candles that burn multi-color flames! I am easily entertained haha, because I was totally fascinated by them. My mother-in-law, Debbie, also gave me a little invitation (covered in butterflies) for a raincheck on taking me to a place called Butterfly Wonderland over the weekend, and a gift card to Chipotle. They sang Happy Birthday and I blew out candles, and it was fun and cute!

I only had one bite of a cakepop and one bite of gelato because Clinton and I were planning on going out to eat supper afterward, but then the weirdest thing happened. We got in the car to leave and all of a sudden I felt like I was going to throw up everywhere, so I changed my mind about eating out - we had planned on Mexican which sounded totally unappetizing after that! Instead, I went back inside to drink some water (Clinton thought I might be dehydrated) while he went to the store to pick up something to eat. 15 minutes later, my handsome husband came back in with ingredients for breakfast for dinner, and we cooked together and ate in our living room while watching a movie. Seriously, who doesn't love a good brinner? It's awesome!

Damn, Turkeldawg!

And that was a wrap on the day of my birthday! A couple days ago I went to celebrate at lunch with my dad and brother, and Sunday morning we met up with Debbie for the Butterfly Wonderland and brunch. The butterfly place was really cool! It's a big building, half of which is the biggest atrium in the U.S. with a whole bunch of different varieties (species? idk) of butterflies, and then inside are ant and bee colonies and a small aquarium. It was a really nice day.

Some photos from the inside exhibits and decor.

So many different ones! So pretty and cool!

Butterflies kept landing all over Debbie!

All of us on the butterfly bench.

Brunch at Butters

And that's the rundown on my birthday celebrations! I'm a lucky girl to be loved by so many awesome people, and I can't wait to see what the year 27 will bring!

Long Weekend Recap

Even though I had to work this Saturday, it was still pretty sweet to have Monday off and get to relax this weekend!

Saturday
Saturday after work I went home, and promptly took a nap. Ha! Clinton and I both fell asleep and slept longer than we intended to, but oh well. When we woke up we went over to my sister's house to catch the UFC fights - it was super weird, for some reason I was just not into it or interested in the fights at all. For those who know me, it's not news that I'm slightly obsessed with UFC/MMA, so it was a weird night for sure. I was more interested in just playing with my baby niece and nephew and instagramming them being adorable, ha! Plus, I have a love-hate relationship with naps. I love taking them, obviously, but I hate waking up from them because I am so grumpy and tired afterward, and it takes me forever to really come out of it! So that happened Saturday and I was just kind of in a haze for most of the night.

After we left, Clinton decided he was hungry and so we stopped to eat at Pei Wei but it was totally throwing me off because it was almost 10p and I never ever eat that late. While we were in there a waiter went and locked the door, and then I felt bad for being those people (there were a couple other tables still dining), but I honestly didn't think they were closing at 10p on a Saturday night, I for sure thought it would be 11p! But luckily we were almost done, so we just hurried up. After we left we decided to hop into the Blockbuster next door and we walked around for a good half hour or so, but we didn't even get anything because nothing really stood out and we had seen most of the movies anyway, ha! Guess that's the bad thing about seeing so many movies! Clint decided that he wanted to actually buy a movie so we went to go to Target, but turns out they also close at 10, ha! Since I work so early I am never even out that late so I have no idea when things close! But he was set on buying some movies, so we went to one of my least favorite places in the world - Wal-Mart. We looked through soooo many movies and oh man, we were there for at least an HOUR with me just following him around aimlessly, and we didn't even buy anything! It was a weird night haha, we were awake at that point so we considered going to see a movie, but it was a few minutes after 11p and that's when the last shows start, so we just went home.

Sunday
Sunday was a pretty lazy day! In the morning we went to Bev-Mo because since we were having people over Monday, I wanted to get some interesting pop. They have a whole wall of specialty pop and you can buy single bottles, so I like to try different ones sometimes - usually whenever we have people over for bbq (about once a month or so) I go buy a few. This trip I got dry blood orange, cranberry, and black cherry.

The dry blood orange is pretty interesting! It's sort of in between a flavored club soda and regular pop - the sweetness is a happy medium between the two. The black cherry tastes how I imagine it might have tasted from an old-fashioned soda fountain, where they put the syrups into each drink and everything. It was a little sweeter and more viscous than say, Cherry Coke. The cranberry dream was one of the grossest things I've ever drank ha! It tasted like medicine. I didn't even finish it... and then I accidentally knocked over the remainder onto the floor and had to scramble to get it up since we just had our carpets cleaned Friday - whoops!! Another kind of interesting gross thing I saw there was one brand that had the weirdest flavors ever - bacon, peanut butter & jelly, and creamed corn. YUCK! Suffice to day, I did not try those ones.

After that we went to the mall so that I could use a $10 gift card I got in the mail from a store for my birthday, and we stopped for one of my favorite snacks at Wetzel Pretzel - pretzel bites and frozen strawberry lemonade. Yummmm. Good thing I don't go to the mall super often because if I did I would eat WAY too much of this!




This is an old picture, but it'll work! We made the mistake of getting 2 bags the 1st time and now we know only 1 is needed!

 After the mall we walked around Cost Plus World Market - we went there just to pick up some olive oil, but we always browse around any time we are in there. After that, the cutest thing happened! We stopped for gas and there was a mama quail and all her little babies crossing the parking lot. It was so cute to see them all running after her across the pavement from one sidewalk to the other! I tried to get close enough to take a picture, but the mom kept running the other direction and the chicks hid in a corner - I think she thought I was a threat and was trying to distract me from her babies - so sweet! But I didn't want to scare them anymore, so we just left them alone - but they were so adorable!

The rest of Saturday was suuuper lazy - we went home and watched the Netflix streaming Season 4 of Arrested Development - the only break we took was to make and grill bacon ranch cheeseburgers and corn on the cob - dinner was super delicious by the way! The burgers were way good and the corn was sooooo sweet.

Monday
Monday morning we did a little bit of grocery shopping and then just spent the early afternoon finishing up Arrested Development and doing prep for dinner. Clinton's parents, Tom and Debbie, came over and we had a nice night. We also originally invited his brother Devon and his uncle Ken, but neither one of them was feeling well, so it ended up being just the 4 of us so there was way too much food, but oh well, that gives us leftovers for lunches! We went with a southern comfort food menu. Grilled carolina BBQ chicken pieces, slow-cooked boneless country-style pork ribs, collard greens (my first time ever both making and eating them!), macaroni and cheese, and rolls.




The spread.

 When we first sat down, Tom moved his plate over to the side when nobody was looking and moved the mac n cheese over to his setting hahaha, and said, "Okay, I'm ready for dinner!" It got a pretty big laugh from everyone. Debbie makes the most amazing potato salad in the whole wide world, and I always do the exact same thing with that bowl whenever she makes it!

After supper (which was super good!) we all hung around for a little while playing board games and being silly - a lot of people don't like board games but we always play and have such a good time! Tom and Clinton are basically the same person and super silly, so there's never a dull moment.

Our poor little puppy was soooo tired and fighting to keep herself awake - she's used to us being gone during the day and spending it sleeping so whenever we're home for most of the day she gets all sluggish by the evening because she spends all day following us around and not getting any rest, so after two days of us being home most of the time, she looked like she could use a nice, long nap.




Little cutie.

 Overall, it was a great, relaxing long weekend, spent with ones I love so really, what more could I ask for? I'm pretty blessed. :)

We've got another long weekend coming up - I have to work Saturday again, but we both have Monday and Tuesday off because my birthday is the 3rd, and as of right now we have no particular plans, but who knows - maybe we'll decide to go somewhere. We shall see! I hope you all have a great week and enjoyed your long holiday weekend as well - what did you do? I'd love to hear about it!

I want to share a little something with you...

Something marvelous was bestowed upon me the other day. You've got to see it with your own eyes to believe it.

- - - - -

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Behold. A manatee dressed as Thor. Two of my favorite things in one? The glory of this picture obviously needs to be shared.

Have a nice day! : )

Weekend Getaway.

A few weeks ago Clinton and I had a couple of days off of work so we decided to get out of town for a day. Even though it's only a couple of hours away, neither one of us had been to Sedona for something like 10 years, and we had both been wanting to get back. I planned out a day of activities, packed a picnic, and off we went!

After rounding a corner, our first real view of the red rocks.

A little ways up the road on the right there was an information center that we decided to pull over at so that we could stretch our legs and give Emmy some time to run around and take in the new smells before we started our day.

Tiny pups gotta get tall to see their new surroundings!

Gorgeous.

 Next up, we headed to Sedona Community Cemetery to pay a visit to Clinton's maternal grandparents. I never met either of them, but we brought a photo of us and his parents from the wedding. There was a little cherub there, but it was stuck in the ground and broken into a bunch of pieces, so Clinton tried to put it back together... I mean, it didn't work that well, ha, but it was cute that he tried.

I didn't take any pictures of the actual cemetery because I thought it would be kinda weird and disrespectful but man, if I wanted to be buried (I don't) it'd be nice for it to be done somewhere like that. There were some incredible views in there, and the grounds felt a lot more organic and in tune with nature than a lot of cemeteries do.

Next up, a kind of odd detour - a fast food joint that we don't even eat at. I had read online that Sedona has the only McDonald's in the WORLD that doesn't have the golden arches. Apparently when McD's wanted to build there the town had to vote on it and they said they could only do it if they made the building flow with everything else - for those who don't know, Sedona is a VERY nature/Mother Earth-centric/New Age place with a lot of spirituality linked to it, and everything there is just kind of made to blend in so that it doesn't take too much away from the natural beauty. I just found it shocking that of all the McD's in the whole world, this is the ONLY one that has different arches, and they are one of my favorite colors, turquoise.

We didn't even go inside, so I'm not sure if the inside looked different or not, but I just thought it was really interesting and wanted to take a picture of it.

After that quick stop, we backtracked a little ways to go visit the Chapel of the Holy Cross. This is a very famous place and I knew that I wanted to visit - I had been reading a lot of travel blogs that mentioned it and every one of them mentioned that it was an incredibly spiritual place (it's placed in a Sedona Vortex). I won't lie - I was a little bit let down. I really didn't feel any kind of intense spiritual experience here - I think because it's very touristy? I mean, they even have a gift shop. I wouldn't call myself religious, but I do believe in God and I have a spiritual connection outside of strict organized religion, so I did go inside and pray for a bit, but I just didn't really feel anything - so I was a little bit bummed about that. However, that doesn't take away from the marvel of the history and the architecture of the place, which I did still enjoy immensely.

I wonder how much mail this place gets? Probably way too much for the postman to ever actually put it in this box.

Inside the chapel.

Truly fascinating info about the architect and building of the chapel, Part 1.

And Part 2.

Guestbook.

On our drive to the chapel we drove past this CRAZY, INSANE, ABSOLUTELY BONKERS house mansion. It was the most elaborate house I have ever seen! I took a picture of it looking down from outside the chapel.

Just look at this place! And look at the view!

When we got home, Clinton looked it up and found out that this place belongs to the guy who created the machine for Lasik surgery! He also found out that the people who live in the other houses around there actually hate it! It's really an eyesore - as beautiful as it is, it's a huge distraction to anyone who drives by. Plus, it apparently screws up water pressure for everyone else in the general area. I mean... it's still a cool house, though, ha!





After our trip to the chapel, we did what I was most looking forward to - some hiking! We went to Oak Creek to do the Red Rock Crossing and go to Cathedral Rock.

First, we walked around at Buddha Beach - this is another vortex area.


The shallow stream meanders past the base of Cathedral Rock and through forested groves. On the bank opposite Cathedral you’ll notice dozens of stacked rock totems, looking like a miniature Stonehenge. This is Buddha Beach, considered to be the site of a powerful vortex. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united-states/arizona/sedona/red-rock-crossing-crescent-moon-ranch-picnic-area-thingstodo-detail-301351/)

This picture was an accident, but I love it! You can even see Cathedral Rock in the background.

We stopped creekside for a family photo op.

And I built a little totem to connect with nature.

After we had had our fill of totem viewing and making, we went back to the other side of the park to Red Rock Crossing - I forgot to take a photo, but it's basically just some flat rocks in the creek that let you get to the other side - and then we took Templeton Trail to Cathedral Rock.

Seriously, this is something that most people have only seen in movies.

It was a beautiful, sunny day.

Giving Emmy's tiny legs a much needed rest.

We hiked a good 2ish miles up Cathedral Rock to the part where it flattens out - there's a peak/needle that you can go up further for even more fantastic views, but we couldn't make the trek with Emmy, so we headed back down. We stopped for a quick rest back at the creek, and then went back down to the bottom to look back at the big ol' rock we had just trekked.

teehee

And then made our way back over to Crescent Moon Picnic Area to have a late picnic lunch, because the occasional piece of jerky on the trail just wasn't gonna cut it!

Emmy was so tired that she didn't even want to eat her favorite salmon jerky treat, and she almost fell asleep right on the table!

So with that, we decided to head home with dirty shoes, empty camelbacks, a sleepy puppy, and a full day of memories in tow.

Pooped.