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 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!