I had a flower-cake delivered to me at work from my in-laws (Stan/Kayti) to kick off my birthday weekend. What is a flower-cake you might ask? Well, it is a cake made out of flowers complete with candles and all. So, super cute. I got lots of “Ooohs and Ahhhs” at work. And a surprising amount of inquiries as to whether or not you could eat it. Nope. All flowers – but it does look delicious!
I got lots of birthday goodies too – candle stick holders and earrings made from old spoons (to compliment my fork bracelet and spoon ring – lovely); basically a new wardrobe of tops for work – well, the beauty of these tops is that they don’t HAVE to be worn to work. Yes!; A flower pot, soil, and flowers for our front porch so that we can fit in with our neighbors and have little beauties welcome us home each day; A cool, wooden sign to hang in our new home (it says Furlong – family is forever) You know, because Furlong is our name; and coasters that were hand made in Bali. We had seen the coasters (designed with the ends of cinnamon sticks) on our honeymoon in Jamaica. We decided not to get them and wished we had SO Matt did some searching and was able to find them for us! Love them! All in all, I think we can venture to say that I am very blessed and maybe slightly spoiled. But wait, there’s more…
Matt took me on a birthday weekend surprise! We went to Orlando and stayed on Lake Eola, which is where we got engaged one year ago on my birthday.
We spent Saturday at a festival in honor of my birthday on the lake. Okay, it was a festival in honor of Earth Day but that’s irrelevant! The Earth really hogs the spotlight when it comes to April 22nd. Lots of vendors and booths filled with earth-friendly products, snacks, and puppies. Yes, puppies that I could eat up and take home. Our favorite was a husky-collie mix. Cutest little thing ever. You could imagine our disappointment when we saw a couple take OUR pup home. Oh well – they will probably love him ALMOST as much. Maybe we will be like this guy and get a pet goat instead?
On a completely unrelated note – will you please look at this car?
Matt wished he was wearing his jorts and I wished I had my hobo sling. We even talked about turning our tiny little back porch into a garden. Oh the things you get inspired to do on Earth Day. We snacked on free hummus samples and pretzel crisps. I say “we”, but I really mean me. Matt’s not a fan.
We watched this kid walk by (let’s call him Junior) with an older…brother maybe? They were both sampling the hummus. Junior took a big spoonful and in disgust, spit it all over the sidewalk. He shouted “This stuff is nasty! How do you like HUE-mus?!” Funny. I personally like my Hue-mus spicy.
We spent some time out on the sidewalk at Starbucks “surfing the net”, talking, and people watching. Matt and I had planned to get dressed up and dine at one of our favorite Orlando restaurants (and partial inspiration for our wedding date), 310 Lakeside, which is where we ate the night we got engaged…BUT there was a BBQ place across from Starbucks and we had been smelling its saucy goodness for about an hour. We decided to go ahead and try something new and it was amazing!
Our hotel room was perfect. We were in the Jefferson Suite. There were indoor “balcony” type hallways that allowed you to see straight down to the bottom floor. You could see out the glass elevators too. We had a great view of the wedding party traveling through the hotel – making sure to keep the bride and groom separate. Their photographers seemed to get some great shots. The bride was wearing a Vera Wang – I recognized it from David’s Bridal. It looked great. Our room was huge and the balcony had a perfect view of our loved Lake Eola. My sweets did good.
Sunday we ate breakfast and went to the 10:45 service at Summit. The hotel tried to charge us $9.99 for some deodorant. Um, no. There is a Publix within walking distance – maybe next time. We stopped by St. George Street in St. Augustine on our way back from Orlando. That was AFTER my car overheated and we had a 30 minute pit-stop at the local Walgreens. Luckily we got it cooled and going and didn’t have to use AAA to tow us all the way back home – that sounds ridiculous, but it wouldn’t be the first time for us. Oh what a long, long ride home that was.
St. George Street was beautiful as always and quite the happening place. Loved seeing all the panting puppies, ice-cream smeared faces, and hand-holding couples – and the occasional homeless saxophone player – hey, gotta have a little culture! We got some German Healing Clay soap (that my mom has tried and likes) from an Organic soap shop - maybe we brought back a little inspiration from the Birthday-Earth Day festival.
We tried a new Mexican restaurant for dinner that was yum-o and then we stopped by Lowe’s to pick up some soil for my new flower pot. I got it from my Mamaw – Matt got me some flowers to fill it up. We planted our flowers, listening to the electric guitar solo blaring from our neighbor’s car – they were giving their car a little scrub-a-dub and TLC. I even met one of our neighbors from next door. Well, I say I met her. Super cute, elementary-aged little girl blowing bubbles and twirling in the front yard. I told her I liked her bubbles and she said thank you & blew one over for me to pop. I think I made a new friend – maybe next time I’ll ask her name!
We ended our night with a movie and I was thankful to have an exciting and restful weekend with my love. This coming up weekend he will be busy bringing home the bacon, so we were so glad to get in some QT (that is, quality time).
Matt’s Dad & Kayti invited us over to celebrate my birthday last night, so the birthday celebrations continued! They spoiled me with fajitas, Raspberry Elegance cake (can you tell that everyone knows how much I love it?) and a sweet box filled with birthday surprises. The card they gave me said “The day you were born the world had to make room for a little more Fancy” – that it did.
I am one lucky girl!
1 comment:
I love any excuse to celebrate you, my sweet daughter in law. Your birth is definitely something to celebrate! It looks like you had a wonderful birthday! Thanks for sharing your adventures with us on this blog. Love you!
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