Who doesn't love a good three-day weekend? This girl definitely does. I mean really - they never disappoint. Whether you relax all weekend or pack it jam full of fun stuff, it's a good time either way. And then after a three-day weekend, it's all made even better with a shorter, four-day work week!
Last weekend was definitely a fully packed three days, and I enjoyed every second of it. Friday night my entire 12-person family went out to my Grandparents house to celebrate my cousin's 21st birthday. We ate yummy dinner, watched him open presents, then had apple pie and ice cream for dessert. So American of us for this Memorial day weekend. :) After that, I went over to my friend Lacey's house to puppy-sit for her precious new addition, Layla. She's so stinking cute, and so very sweet and cuddly!
I watched a movie at her house, stayed up way too late reading a really good book, then finally went to sleep. Saturday morning Layla woke me up way earlier than I would have liked, but it was OK, because her extreme cuteness made up for a little bit. Jeff and his mom then came to pick me up at 8, and we went out to the St. Mark's Trail for a very early bike ride. One of Mrs. Nita's friends, Bonnie, met us out there so they could stay together for the ride. Jeff and I had an awesome 12-mile ride, and I really did feel pretty great afterwards. I'm really, really liking this whole biking thing lately!
After the bike ride, we each went to our houses shower, change clothes and get packed up to head to Valdosta, GA, for the rest of the day. We have annual passes to Wild Adventures - which means we also get to go to the water park there as well! After meeting up with Jeff's youngest brother (who lives in Valdosta) and his girlfriend for a late lunch, we headed into the park. We slathered on some sunscreen, found a locker for our bag and towels, stuffed it all in, and got started! We had a ton of fun on all of the slides and in the lazy river, and thankfully it wasn't too crowded. (And click
HERE if you missed my last post about the
video I made!)
The water park closed at 7 pm, so we each leisurely changed clothes, met back up together, went back to the car to drop off our wet stuff and had a quick snack of apples and 100-calorie Cheeze-it packs. Then we got back into the park just in time for the concert to start! The Band Perry was quite amazing in real life, and I was thoroughly impressed. I don't like it when musicians don't sound as good in real life as they do on their CD, but The Band Perry was spot on, and I really appreciated that. The main singer-girl, Kimberly, is also just a natural and really good entertainer, and she made the whole concert really fun to watch, sing along with and be a part of!
After the concert, we had a serious jam session in the car to Queen's Greatest Hits album, followed by '80's Pop Hits on Pandora. We sang at the top of our lungs, and had another snack of strawberries and M&M's. By the time we made it home, we were extremely exhausted, but we had enjoyed an amazingly fun day together. Sunday morning brought on the usual routine of coffee with the family, Sunday School and "big church," followed by lunch with my family, plus my Aunt, Uncle and cousin at El Jalisco's for some Mexican. We went home to have movie rest time as a family, and I took a tiny nap. That night was spent at Jeff's house chatting with some ladies from his church, finishing up a movie we had started a few days before, and playing a couple of card games with his Mom. Quite a fun night!
Monday morning was another early start - but I was totally OK with it, because that meant we were on the way to the beach!! At first, we were skeptical to go because the tropical storm was threatening something like a 60% chance of rain all over the place here in Florida. Luckily for us though, we decided to brave it anyways, and I'm so glad we did, because it ended up being the most beautiful day!!
Mrs. Nita packed us all yummy sandwiches, grapes, strawberries, pretzels, Pringles, Diet Coke, water and mango tea. Tons of yummy snacks :) The sun was out most of the time, although there were some times with clusters of dark, slightly menacing clouds overhead. We packed up to head home around 3:30 pm, and it didn't rain on us until then! We really lucked out with amazing weather, despite a tropical storm looming over on the East coast of the state!
We had so much fun swimming around in the water, and there were TONS of star fish and sand dollars everywhere! These guys had picked up about 15 of them, and let us take a picture before they released them all back out again. (Do their little tentacles on the underside of them creep anyone else out? Because they super creep me out...) And even though we put SPF 50 on Jeff twice throughout our four-ish hours out there, dude still came away with a pretty nasty sunburn. He's just so fair-skinned and freckle-y, that a sunburn is pretty much inevitable no matter what. Poor Irish boyfriend :)
After the beach, we stopped in Panacea to eat an early-ish dinner at The Coastal, and all three of us shared a giant "Dinner for Two" platter of delicious seafood. We all ate a bit too much, and left extremely full. Back at their house, we took turns getting cleaned up, and then putting aloe on the sunburns. And then we played cards again, but this time I won! (And I won pretty big...) I went home kind of early to see my family and spend a little bit of time with them before bedtime. They told me about their day at the beach in Panama City and they had some funny stories about too many people all in one boat...
Like I said - it was an extremely full weekend. But it was full of stuff that made me happy and healthy and grateful for an extra day in my weekend! I got to spend some good quality time with all of my family members, got a nice dose of vitamin D, heard a great concert and generally had a wonderful time. I love long weekends, and I love the things I get to do during a long weekend! I hope everyone else had an equally enjoyable Memorial Day weekend, whether it was fun and busy, or restful and easy-going. Both are lovely options :)
Also, today starts a new diet plan, and I will be sharing more of my weight loss journey and issues later in the week. (Oh wait, it is already later in the week...so, maybe this weekend if I can get around to it...?) I'm contemplating being very transparent with my weight, how much I'm trying to lose, and what my ultimate goal weight is. It's just scary sharing such personal information, especially when I'm not too comfortable with it. I don't know, we'll see...
But for now, I want to share one more exciting thing in my life - one year ago today (May 31, 2011) was when Jeff and I went on our very first date! It doesn't seem like it's been that long already, but on the other hand, it feels likes it hasn't yet been long enough! Either way, it's been a great year and I'm so thankful that he's in my life now. Love you Baby :)
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| Left: St. Augustine 10/11. Top: Jeff's Bday 5/12. Middle: twins' bday party 7/11. Bottom: New Year's Eve 12/11. |
