Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 4

i think that Monday may have been the best day of the whole trip, even though it meant that i only had a half day left with my man. we met up rather early, instead of sleeping the whole day away and had some breakfast, then we decided that we were gonna go back to the Birmingham Zoo, just the two of us and spend as much time as we wanted! i only had my white long sleeve shirt this day because i'd worn all of my others, and wouldn't you know it-it was supposed to rain ALL day-thank goodness it was only a light sprinkle and that i had a black jacket to wear over! it had rained heavy early in the morning but it just continued to lightly sprinkle from like 11 to 3! we got to the zoo a little after 11 and there was NO ONE there. literally. we decided to hit all of the exhibits cause we had more time this time, and when we went to the "barn" which is the petting zoo, the girl inside said we were the first visitors they had seen all day! crazy! but we loved it cause there was no one and we could spend as much time as we wanted! i have no pictures of the two of us of course, but i do have quite a few of joshua playing with the animals! we walked the entire zoo and even got lost trying to find the "predator zone", but eventually we found it, but of course everyone was indoors because of the rain! several animals did make a quick appearance, so that was nice! and the lion came out twice and gave us several loud roars! josh really wanted to see the tigers but they were sleeping inside and never came out :( such a bummer! but we had SO much fun together! it was one of THE best dates we have ever had! and we decided that in december for our 2 years we will go to the Phoenix Zoo cause the weather will be gorgeous! and i just found out yesterday that they actually have koalas for a limited time til march! hooray!!!! joshua made me laugh the entire day with all of his funny voices and comments about the animals! the best one nearly killed me cause i couldn't breathe due to the fact that i was laughing so hard! towards the end of our day in the zoo we went to the reptile exhibits-it was a warm and toasty building so i appreciated it! the desert tortoise exhibit made us both laugh because they have like a jungle scene painted on the wall, a rock, a tortoise and a bunch of wood chips for the ground-ummmmm yeah lol guess they've never seen a REAL desert tortoise in its habitat! anyways so we oohed and aahed at the pythons and lizards etc, then we came to the komodo dragon room. when we went on saturday it was sleeping, but this day it was wide awake and running around its little home, we watched cause we thought it was way cool since we haven't seen one very active before, and it passes in front of us on it's way to the other side of its large cage, and just as it passes in front of joshua it totally craps right in the middle of the exhibit, and as if it wasn't goofy and funny enough, without any hesitation josh turns and says, "well, i can check that off my life list now...." and walks into the other room without even looking back. i nearly DIED it was so funny-it was so totally unexpected and random for him to say, but i loved it-he is such a funny man! and so quick with his humor! gotta love the boy! after the zoo we went to Moe's- it is delish. you should go there too. i always eat too much there, but it is just so yummy! not super cheap, but super yummy so it's worth the indulgence at least once a week i think-i know it will be a regular spot for the joshmeister and i. after our delicious lunch (at 3pm lol) we went to the store to get all of the things i needed to make enchilada casserole (josh's favorite-and now jesse's too lol) and ooey gooey bars (another favorite of the boys). i ended up making 3 casseroles (yes full 9x13 casseroles) and 3 ooey gooey bars (yes also 9x13 pans). i was SO tired and hot after spending forever in the kitchen! but the boys were helpful and it turned out yummy! we had lots of fun eating it together! and then the boys each whisked their own pans off to their fridges for leftovers so no one else in the dorm could steal it lol. jesse called on my birthday and told me to come back and make more cause he was out-and that i should move soon so i can cook more often :) silly boys-but they do love a home cooked meal! after dinner we all decided to watch a movie and i did some of joshua's laundry! and then we decided to have our ooey gooey bars for dessert and made ourselves miserable with all of the sweetness!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 3

Sunday was a rather lazy day of the vacation, Josh and i met up and had the left over Krispy Kreme's for breakfast, then we left to meet gramma and grampa but they had to cancel cause the weather was getting bad and they wanted to make sure everything was packed up so they could leave early in the morning. so josh and i went shopping at TJ Maxx and a few other places nearby and then we went to have some lunch, just the two of us :) it was wonderful! and so fun to have a date! after lunch we puttered around town some more wasting time til Josh had to go to practice!  we decided i should stay downtown, but everything was closing and i can't stay in his dorm without him, so i called leia and she and i went shopping and cleaned trey's apartment while they were at practice-well, we more like cleaned the clothes off the floor and then entertained ourselves watching cake boss and the food network-which was incredibly dumb cause we were both starving! after 4 and a half hours the boys were finally done! joshua and i decided to have some hungry howie's and rent another movie-this time it was Date Night with Steve Carrell-it was cute, not our favorite, but cute! then he and Jesse played some more video games while i made the shopping list for the next day's feast!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 2

On saturday Joshua and I went to eat some breakfast, then we just chilled for a bit and watched some tv til lunch time! We met gramma and grampa at Jim N Nicks-it is rather delicious and could put you in a food coma for sure-if you ever go to birmingham, or come to see me when i live there, we most certainly will be going! i had a HUGE, and i mean HUGE loaded baked potato with delicious bbq pork. the potato was like 4 regular potatoes combined, and i ordered the small!!! i am gonna be 700 pounds if i live there....anyway after lunch we decided to go explore birmingham a little bit, we went to some freedome trails park or something, then decided that we would go to the botanical gardens! but on the way to the gardens we changed our minds and ended up at the Birmingham Zoo! they were closing early that day but we still got a good hour and a half in and saw so many cool things! it was a beautiful zoo! way smaller than the phoenix zoo, but very pretty, especially with all of the fall colors-which we never have here in az, but birmingham has a BEAUTIFUL fall. loved it. anyway so the zoo was awesome and then we decided that we were all hungry again so we went to the Mellow Mushroom and had some yummy pizza, and i nearly exploded after that delicious meal-the Watson-Patterson-Zahn families feed me TOO much! its always delicious, but dang guys you're gonna kill me! after dinner gramma and grampa had to go take care of the dog and josh and i went to go hang out with jesse! the boys played some video games and we watched some tv! and watching the two of them together is quite comical! after games and such we decided that we were hungry, mind you it was like 1115 pm......yes i know it is terrible. and of all the things, josh decided he had to have some krispy kreme-so we drove a whole 15 minutes to get some krispy kreme for all of us-and i thought they would be closed-but no, the place is 24 hours and i'm not even joking, there were a good 50 people inside and we were 7 cars deep in the drive through......the peeps of the birmingham area must really love their krispy kreme late at night man!

operation surprise joshua

okay so the "post the trip story tomorrow" thing worked really well....NOT. haha sorry for the delay-if you only knew the chaos that ensues the week prior to thanksgiving sheesh. so i don't really know where to begin, its all fairly long and complicated so i'll do my best to keep it short or maybe i'll decided to break this up into multiple posts-not too sure how i feel yet!
so wednesday i went for girls day with emily, as we already know from my airport post :) it was a blast, i think i almost had a heart attack 4 times on the way into the airport terminal, twice in security, another 3 times waiting in the gate for two hours and probably another 5 on the plane, but i felt much better after landing, though i'm pretty sure joshua didn't appreciate the 4 hour delay in text (he decided to nap right at 2ish, and my plane didn't leave til 4-hence the need for multiple heart attacks, cause i was sure he wasn't gonna believe my movie and dinner story, but he did, thank goodness :) ) sooo anyway i sat by some nice ladies on the plane, they were sisters and hadn't seen each other in nearly a year so listening to their stories was quite entertaining!  when i got off the plane, i ran to the potty cause i was shocked by the 50 degree weather after being in the warm plane, and just as i made it down the escalator my bag was almost all the way around the carousel-perfect timing! then i called miss leia and she and her friend morgan picked me up. as soon as i got in the car they say "so are you hungry? do you like mexican food?" and i did my best not to laugh because i knew they were just being polite, but i did have to say "uh, i live in arizona....of course i love mexican food!" i was a little iffy of course because how do you really find legit mexican food in birmingham alabama? i thought it was gonna be like taco bell or something lol but we went to a little hole in the wall place called "los compadres". it wasn't too bad-but it definitely ain't no REAL mexican food like we have here, but it will do in a craving situation for future reference. the salsa i'm pretty sure was canned, and those were DEFINITELY not fresh chips-dang we are so spoiled here lol. oh and i ordered the taco platter. um i don't know if you've ever had a taco platter here in the az but it usually comes with fresh tortillas, delicious meat of your choice and a whole lotta rice and beans. yum. unfortunately this does not happen in the birmingham-you do get three very yummy tacos, but you get like grocery store tortillas and some cheese and lettuce  bahahha :) but i had a lot of fun and i met leia's other friend john too and we all had a great time chatting-john was super curious about arizona, it is so funny to see people's reaction when you say you came from arizona-their jaws all drop and they all say some variation of "you came ALL the way from arizona!?" like it's the other side of the world or something lol. after dinner we went back to leia's house and talked for hours and finally went to bed! i woke up fairly early the next morning for me and leia and i ate breakfast-then tried to plan our day full of things so we wouldn't be bored til gametime at 7 pm. boy lemme tell ya it is no easy task to make a whole day go by when you are wishing it was later lol. we ate lunch and went to the park, and ran errands, and it was only 1!! killer. we had so much fun though! i'm glad we had a whole day to just hang! we went early to tailgate-like 430 or 5ish and of course all of the mom's were dying to hear the surprise story, which was sweet! then i met katie and her family and they gave me my ticket to get in-they are so super sweet! and they even stuck around after the game to see josh's reaction. when it was finally time to go into the stadium leia and i walked directly into gramma and grandpa and i nearly died right on the spot! but somehow they managed not to recognize me so we ran up the stairs to get a spot and sat about 15-20 rows right behind them, i could see them the whole game but they couldn't see me! the game lasted FOREVER! unfortunately they lost, but i had so much fun sitting with leia and trey's family! his dad is super funny! and i met so many new friends!
 here is a picture of me right after the game ended trying to avoid the guys on the field seeing me and his grandparents! they are right to the right of my shoulder in the blue jackets!

they had no idea! as soon as we took this we ran out the gates to the spot where the players come out and did our best to hide ourselves so that josh and gramma and grampa wouldn't see! after what seemed like ten years they finally came out and leia told josh she had something for him, he knew something was up cause one of the guys had said "your night is about to get a whole lot better" but he wasn't sure still. when he got to me his jaw dropped and he was like "wow" haha and he just kinda stood there for a little bit-i think we definitely got him good cause he had NOOO idea whatsoever, all he could say was "wow" haha :) that's an extra point for me thank you very much :) his grandparents were quite shocked to and didn't really know what to say but it was definitely fun! and so worth all of the waiting! thank you to everyone who helped get it all together! especially Leia and Jesse who helped me plan the whole thing!