Surprise Florida Trip: The "what" Part 2

We left off Saturday, which was breezy.
Sunday was cold.
Cold is naturally all relative, but for FL it was cold.
We headed to the beach to look for shells in the morning and I snapped some photos.

(waving, hiiiii!)

We then headed to breakfast (uncle was there too, but he was hiding in the car) at the Cove Inn. It's a teeenyy tiny hole in the wall, but has the best pancakes. Or so I'm told, I had an egg sandwich with bacon. (I've been making note of a lot of food the last 2 posts. This is because as of the drafting of this post, I am starving. Duh. 

After breakfast, my aunt, M and I went to Goodwill. 
I hear you laughing, but do some simple deduction here: what is Goodwill comprised of? Discarded clothes from residents in a relatively close proximity (usually) to that particular store. And when the area in "relatively close proximity" to Goodwill happens to be ridiculously affluent neighborhoods, on occasion, you find some pretty good steals. It was my aunt who first turned us onto this gem a year or 2 ago. This year, M got a Ralph Lauren polo and a (seemingly) never worn Banana Republic T-shirt for a total of $12. Last year he got some dockers shorts, a polo, and some brand new FootJoy golf cleats for $20.

That afternoon my aunt and uncle went to some open houses (being a real estate attorney, my uncle likes to keep abreast of the local market.... I'd do it for the sole purpose of snooping through million dollar homes.. se la vie). M and I camped out on the porch and read in the sun. Despite the fact that it was chilly, the sun was warm.

Monday was our last day in Florida, and coincidentally, the warmest.
We started the morning by walking to a breakfast joint I had spotted a different day, where we enjoyed the warmth of the morning sun on the patio. 

After breakfast, we walked down the pier again and enjoyed the lack of gale-force winds.

 

We walked back to the condo along the beach, grabbed some towels, and headed back for some much needed sun. Well, warm sun, that is. 

Imagine my delight when, after walking to the water to dip my toes in, I turn around and spot M with the camera, snapping away. 

I haven't quite gotten to the point where I feel comfortable thrusting it into his hands and asking him to take "natural" looking photos of myself.. as much as I love those type of photos other bloggers post. I know, I know, I can't get what I don't ask for.. but still, it was nice for him to do it all on his own.

After getting sweaty at the beach, we headed home to rinse off a bit, and then hit 5th for a cocktail and appetizer (notice a theme here?) 

On our walk there M noticed through the breezeway of one of the buildings that there was some type of deck and fountain near a body of water, so we stopped to check it out on our walk back. 

 

 

We left the pond and were walking home when M said he wanted to stop down at the beach and just sit on a bench to enjoy the gulf view for the last time. 

I ended up falling asleep for a bit with my head in his lap.. waves gently crashing on the beach always lulls me to sleep. 

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the condo, and indulging in some of my aunt's ridiculously tasty cooking. She whipped up some fresh egg salad (I have never had it and honestly don't like eggs other than in breakfast-form, and even I wolfed some down) and chop salad with fresh veggies. Maybe it's because she shops at the farmer's market, and everything is obviously fresh in a place where it doesn't usually drop below 30 degrees.. but man. Things just taste better in Florida. 

Aaanndd on that note, TGIF. 
Actually if we're being honest it'd be TFGIF.. you can take a guess what that first "F" is for. 
Nothing like coming back from vacation, getting sick (seriously, who does that?), and then coming back to work on Wednesday to 5 new projects... one of which I was given the Friday I was out, the magnitude of which clearly telling me that the 4 workdays I was in FL/sick were necessary to doing it justice. This translates to working this weekend. Anybody out there a resident expert in hearsay, send em my way. You want to talk about words that start to look and sound fake after staring at them too long? --> HEARSAY. Seriously. 

Surprise Florida Trip: The "how"

Oofta.
We're back!

Let's back up a bit, shall we?
January is a good place to start.
I told M sometime in early January that this year I wanted to make Valentines Day* about HIM. Since my birthday falls on Valentines Day, it's usually all about me. Not by demand, necessarily, it's just the way it's worked out in the past.

I wanted to plan a weekend away, and after looking into alternate destinations (we've been to Naples 3 times, including this trip now) I decided it was more cost effective on such short notice to go back to Naples.
A bonus about going to Naples, and mayyybeee a large reason why we keep going back, is the fact that my aunt and uncle have a condo 3 blocks off the beach. And when I say condo, I really should say a bed and breakfast, because omgosh is it nice. Not to mention any piece of food my aunt touches turns into magic. Seriously.
Here's a peek at our digs:

(heeyyyyy handsome ;) )

Anyway, now that the obvious is out of the way, let's go back to the "how I did it" part.
First, I told M he needed to take a half day the 14th and all day the 15th off work. I told him we had "events" we were doing. I never let on this was a full weekend thing, or even that we were leaving town.

I had asked him twice if he had off President's Day. He said "yeah, I think so" which should've been code for me to dig deeper with someone else, but I took his word for it and bought our plane tickets.
We'd be leaving the 14th at 4 p.m. and coming back late the 18th (President's Day).

I then started to have some doubts as to whether he actually had off President's Day, so I facebooked a coworker of his whom I'd met several times. That's when the bomb came: nope, they did NOT have it off. Lovely. I then took it upon myself to email M's supervisor and see what could be done. I filled him in about my plan and asked if he could help. He replied and said that M only had one meeting scheduled for that day so he'd gone in and blocked off the rest of his calendar for a "strategy summit." He said he'd have to think up some creative lies to tell him as the day got closer because, as he put it, M is an "inquisitive little bugger." :)

The wrenches just kept coming, though.
While at my CLE in late January I got an email from M's sister to M, their dad, and their other sister informing us she'd be back in town and wanted to get together the weekend of the 15th.
Crap.
I took M off the email and replied, letting them in on the secret as well.
In actuality, it served as a nice distraction. I let M think his dad was staying at our place and we'd be spending the weekend with them, which further confused him about what our plans were. M's dad stays with us often, but, M had no idea that he wouldn't be seeing him. 

In a cosmic act of redemption, I got an email a week or so before we left informing me that their new CEO had given them President's Day off anyway. Oofta, one less thing to worry about!

February 14th rolls around.
D-Day.
I took the day off, so as soon as M left for work I sprang into action. I hustled around and packed BOTH our suitcases (a much more difficult feat than anticipated, since I couldn't find M's rolly bag suitcase..and had to borrow a friend's at the last minute.) I had planned a lunch with friends (the first time I've spent my birthday with friends since my 21st. A sad consequence of having a V-Day B-Day when all the rest of ya'll are busy "not" celebrating* ;-).

I left M explicit instructions to NOT MOVE when he got home. I had set out a change of clothes and told him to sit on the couch and go nowhere else. My fear was, he'd start to discovery missing toiletries, items moved, and become suspiscious. (I found out later he disobeyed my orders and went to grab a jacket to shovel, only to find it gone.. and then took a shower, and wondered where his brush went. Men, sheesh.)

I met up with Molly and Sarah at Salut in St. Paul, and had a delicious birthday lunch. 

I got home from lunch, and tossed our suitcases from my trunk to M's trunk before heading inside. I knew he'd be home from work by then, and I had transferred his clothes into the suitcase I borrowed from Molly in the Salut parking lot.

I went inside and found M in the living room, along with a dozen roses (that would later get shoved in a closet to die because the cat eats EVERYTHING and M had no idea we weren't returning for 5 days). He'd also framed and matted my law school diploma, which I thought was very sweet. Lastly, in his card, he told me we'd be going to Dock 86 Monday to pick out a new couch for our living room! Once again, poor guy had no idea that wouldn't be happening either. At least not Monday!

I told him it was time to go, but we needed to stop for gas first, and that I'd tell him at the gas station (I wanted to film it and either he or I needed to actually drive to the airport..so that's how it went down.) Here's the video, which I absolutely adore: 

He was SO funny the whole drive there, asking dozens of questions, and repeating "This is nuts. This is insane. I can't believe it." over and over again. Haha.

I had worked it out with his sister, who was flying into the airport Thursday night a few hours after we left, to leave M's car in short term parking so that she could pick it up and drive back to our place to watch TJ for the weekend. It all went so flawlessly (well, except for the part where she couldn't find where we'd left the spare key with the car, but thankfully she'd only been looking for about 10 minutes by the time we landed and got cell service again), and we were on our way to Florida!

Tomorrow I'll post the actual vacation recap, since this is already obscenely long. Totally unrelated, but I appear to have come down with some kind of head cold. My body clearly saw the weather back home and said "nuh uh, that ish ain't happenin" and gone on strike. Mer. 







*[For all of you reading who think Valentine's Day is dumb, or refer to it as a Hallmark Holiday, or brag about how you 'don't get into V-Day' and were all super low key about how you celebrated (you STILL celebrated it): I'm onto you. Also, if V-Day is so fabricated, what exactly is the point of St. Patrick's Day. Hmmm? And the refrain of 'I show my significant other love every day!' (insert googly eyes) makes me yawn. Where's the chorus on Mother's Day? Father's Day? Thanksgiving? ALSO things you can do year round. derka der. (drops mic.) Don't get me wrong, if celebrating it isn't your jam, fine. What irks me are those who go so far out of their way to make it known.]

Wisconsin wedding weekend

This weekend two of M's friends, well.. I guess my friends too now :).. got married in the little farmy town of Barron, WI. 

We hit the road Saturday after having lunch with my dad. 

That's when we spotted this gem on 35E north.

 

 I mean really.. who DOESN'T wake up one day and think "man, it'd look REALLY cool if I spray painted my Chrysler with tigers and got a vanity plate that says 9 LIVEZ" (with a Z, obvs.)

I showered up in St. Paul, and just had to do my hair at the hotel. We met a bunch of the other couples in the lobby to carpool to the ceremony, since they were going to have a shuttle running from the reception back to the hotel.

M's got a good looking group of friends ;-) 

(from L-R, Dan, M, Ben, Jordan, Brian, Brady, and Brett)

 

 The ceremony was beautiful and the bride's cousin was an OUT OF THIS WORLD singer. 

The groom and his brother own a music production business, and Phil Solem (lead singer of the Rembrandt's, also known as the band behind theme song to the hit show FRIENDS) is a mentor of theirs. They also are friends with Michael Bland (who played drums for Prince). Both of them, along with a few others they handpicked, made up the band.

Between my sore legs and the hangover I had this morning, I'd say we all had a good time!

Father daughter dance 

annndd Jordan photobombing M. haha

The "L" was Jordan's girlfriend, Shannon's idea... she called it the "future lawyers of America" photo. Jordan is entering his 3rd year at the U of M law school. 

From L-R Shannon, Eve and Megan

From L-R Jordan, M and Eric

Brooke getting ready for Zach to fish the garter out...

I think she was yelling at him to crawl for it here...

which he did. 

Love the facial expression here, haha

and then we all took photos with the garter on our head like a ninja. 

Here's Andrea: 

There's a photo of me wearing it floating around there somewhere

Eve, me, and Shannon

Josh, Eric and myself

Josh, Eric, M and Pete

Overall, it was a heck of a good time! For unexplained reasons I sobbed for a half hour in the hotel room. Woke up with a mound of tissues and zero recollection of why I was crying. 

yes, I was "that girl" ...woops. 

M and I hit the road early, hit McDonald's, and I even mustered the energy to go to Michael's to get more crafting supplies. I have a couple cool projects to share!

M and I have a liturgy planning session tonight at the church. I'm really excited, since I don't have a solid idea about what we'll be doing. I'm not sure if we're just going to chat about the process and get a booklet with a selection of readings, or what. Regardless, I'm looking forward to going back to the church. I love it so much. :)

Hope you all had a good weekend! 

-Kelly

Weekend recap

Tuesday weekend recap is better than no weekend recap, right? 

 

Today I was 100% worthless at work, and then I forgot my phone at home so I couldn't even email myself the photos I took to get a blog post put together. Remember that one time I was super excited about taking nice photos all weekend and showing you guys what we were up to? You don't? Good. Let's not discuss the fact that I left my camera in the basement and these are all  cell phone pics. 

Friday morning, as I mentioned, we went to Fort Snelling for a quick memorial service for my grandpa. He passed away in February of 2011, and there was some debate over what to do with his ashes, and the family finally settled on putting most of them at Fort Snelling.. which makes me very happy. 

For one, he was in the Army for 6 years during WWII and deserves to be here. Not to mention although cemeteries are sad, Fort Snelling is breathtakingly beautiful, well manicured, and a place I will look forward to visiting to leave flowers and talk to him.

 They have a voluntary honorary color guard that does the 21 gun salute. Pretty touching to see these elderly men in uniform STILL dedicating themselves to their country by honoring fellow soldiers, marines, airmen, etc.etc.

 No joke, the dude 2nd from the left with the white flag had to be 100 years old. Serious dedication.

 We went to TGI Friday's after for lunch, and then took off for the lovely little farming town of Moorhead, MN.. where M was born and raised. His dad and his dad's girlfriend still live there on her homestead. (M's sister and her bf were also up visiting, so it was nice spending some quality time with them too!) I will say this- I'm happy with where I live in the cities, I love being close to everything, but I REALLY love having a place in the middle of nowhere to get away to. It's simple living, quiet, and pretty in its own way. They live in the middle of a cornfield that's surrounded by trees.

Here's the view up their driveway:

 A few weeks ago we'd gotten an email from M's dad that he had gone out to the car on a Sunday morning and saw a little ball of fur by the tire, barely moving. It was a baby kitten who was very near death. They brought her inside, fed her kitten formula from an eyedropper, warmed her up, and she was as good as new! I think they've decided to keep her. Her name is Cassie. Ready to die? Here she is:

 WAHHH. I melt. She quickly earned the nicknames Baby-Cassie,  Cassie-Pants, Sassy-Cassie, and Gassy-Cassie (I don't need to go into detail on the latter of those)

I spent a good portion of my weekend, like any true cat lady, snuggled up with Cassie.

 I am so in love with her! We may be back up in September when his other sister is home, and I kind of hope we do get up there before she gets too big!

 The rest of the weekend was spent out back doing a lot of this:

 Since they live in the middle of nowhere, shooting at a target is perfectly safe. I did not partake. Guns make me nervous, not to mention, I just really didn't feel like it. I did enjoy watching M shoot, and then borderline skip to the target. Big kid, I tell ya.

 annndddd because there isn't a TON to do in Moorhead, we headed into downtown Fargo (right across the Red River from Moorhead) and browsed an antique shop. I love putsing through antique shops, M and I always have a good time.

 Necessary apparel for the frigid winters in Moorhead.

 We then walked through downtown and stopped for a snack at the Hotel Donaldson. Imagine my surprise when they had truffle fries on the menu. Fries in general are a weakness of mine, but truffle fries? I barely know what a truffle is, but OMG it makes fries so good. Add some herbs and parmesean and enter nirvana.

 Sunday it was time to head back home for my friend's Pinterest Craft Fest.

I made 2 super cute signs out of burlap for the wedding. I'm going to take a photo and showcase those for you soon :-) 

Hope you all had a good weekend!

-Kelly