The Great Birthday Surprise

So, I began Saturday as instructed. I slept in until after 10am. Yay! Daddy & Taylor left early. After I got up, I lounged around and watched some tv and hung out until about 1, when I gathered myself and packed a small bag for scalloping on Sunday.

I got to mom's house around 3. Mom was getting Taylor down for a nap, and it was pretty obvious something was up. A few minutes later, I was told that I needed to go check on Taylor for a couple minutes. So, I did. What do you know....he was napping. At which point, Robert came and got me and told me there was something on the back porch that I needed to go get and that I would have to feed it and give it something to drink. *gasp* He certainly wouldn't have the nerve to buy a pet...would he??

So, when I get to the back porch, I find.....MONIQUE!!! One of my bestest friends EVER! He really went all out and I was sooooo excited. Then I find out that there's more to it, but I wouldn't find out what until later. Michelle, Tommy, Nanny & Bill and some others were there for a surprise party...YAY! We had steaks, kabobs, baked potatoes....the works. It was an awesome dinner to say the least.

After dinner, I got to open "gifts". The big ones weren't wrapped. You know you're getting old when you ask for and are excited to get a garbage disposal and a DustBuster for your birthday. :) Then there were cards. Some had money, some had gift cards. One in particular, was good for one whole weekend of babysitting. Yay again!

Then there was another card. A card from Mom & Dad. This particular card held something very special. It held 2 THIRD ROW CENTER tickets to the Brooks & Dunn concert in Jacksonville!!!! Monique and I were to leave early Sunday morning! I was soooo excited!

So we left around 9:30 and headed straight for the mall. We had an appointment at 2:30 to get our makeup done at Mac...which is always fun. After 2.5 hours (quite an ordeal) with the makeup chick, we went and checked into the hotel. Monique got us an awesome room at the Hyatt Regency right next to The Landing on the river. After some hair prep time, we got dressed and went downstairs to The Plaza III for dinner.

After a few drinks, appetizers and an awesome dinner, we got a cab (scary ordeal) and headed to the Arena. Due to the makeup ordeal, we were 45 minutes late and missed part of Rodney Atkins. We still caught about an hour of him, and it was GREAT! Did I mention that he's hot?? :) Who knew?

Brooks & Dunn finally came on about 9 and the seats were AWESOME!!! For the next hour and a half, we danced, sang and had sooooo much fun!!
Caught a cab back to the hotel and had a drink at the bar before going up to the room. It didn't take long to get into some jammies and crash.

As part of the whole package, I got Monday off, so we took our time getting back. Monique's flight didn't leave until 6pm, so we headed to Lake City once we checked out of the hotel. We had lunch at a very good mexican restaurant called El Potro...YUM! Then we hit the Lake City mall, which, on account of it's size, didn't take very long. From there, we headed back home to get Monique to the airport.

So, that concludes the Birthday Surprise. It was awesome and I had so much fun. I love you, babe. I love Mom & Dad too!

This is the only picture I've gotten the "ok" on so far to post...
Before the show:


Rodney Atkins:


Brooks & Dunn