Surprised AGAIN!!!

Well....he's done it again! Just a little while ago, I walked through my bedroom and noticed a card on my pillow. It was a valentine from David. The envelope said "after you read this card, look under the alarm clock." So, after I read the card (which was very sweet), I looked under the clock. I could tell it was tickets...so I thought he must have gotten us tickets to a show coming up and I started trying to think what was playing at the Fox. All of that changed when I read the tickets!!! It was tickets to Mamma Mia and Mary Poppins.....in NEW YORK CITY!!!!!!!! We are going the weekend of our 11th wedding anniversary! What a great way to celebrate!!! I am still in shock as I type this! :) And, what makes it even more fun is that we are going the same weekend as my best friend, LeighAnn!! Her husband surprised her with the trip for her 30th birthday last month! Don't we have the BEST husbands in the world??? LeighAnn and I are very excited about spending another weekend in NYC...and we've already started planning our trip! (Of course...I called her immediately after finding out my surprise! She already knew but had kept it secret from me!) Needless to say, I am overwhelmed by the generosity of my sweet husband. I felt pretty special last weekend with the surprise to Hilton Head...and now to be able to spend our anniversary in NY....I'm so thankful to God for all He has blessed me with! I love my husband more and more every day....God is SO good!

Sweet Surprise!

Last Friday, I got a strange e-mail from David shortly after he left for work. It said "Hope you feel like getting up today....Love, David." I had been feeling under the weather for a few days, so I just figured he meant that he hoped I felt better and just went on about my day resting on the couch. A little while later, I checked my e-mail again to find another e-mail from David asking if I had recieved his e-mail. I got to thinking maybe he sent me and e-mail asking me to send him a document from his computer or needing some information from me so I responded that the only e-mail I had recieved was about me getting up today. That's where the fun began...he said, I was hoping you would respond....I have a game for you to play. Look under the couch cushion where you normally sit. So.....I look....and I find the first of 7 clues! David had made arrangements for us to go on a weekend trip to Hilton Head, SC and decided to tell me about it by sending me on a scavenger hunt for clues! The clues only revealed that we were going somewhere overnight and to have my bags packed in time to be ready to go when we picked up the girls from school. He also told me to have the girls packed to spend the weekend with my parents as we would be dropping them off after we picked them up. He didn't tell me where we were going until we were on our way!

Hilton Head is about a 4 and a half hour drive so we had lots of quiet, uninterrupted time to talk together. We arrived at our Hotel just after 8 o'clock and had enough time to check in and freshen up before our 9 pm dinner reservation at Frankie Bones. We enjoyed some delicious Lobster Macaroni and Cheese for dinner....so delish!

The next morning, David arranged for us to have a couples massage at the Hotel Spa. We were given all-day access to the spa and I took full advantage of the steam room and sauna before and after my massage! After our massages, we went to Harbour Town to see the Lighthouse. We had lunch at the Crazy Crab...yummy! After lunch, we headed to a local outlet mall for some shopping. When we got back to the hotel, we decided to go for a walk on the beach! I decided to share my grapes from the spa with some of the sea gulls on the beach and that turned into a Hitchcock like afternoon!! All of a sudden about a hundred birds came flying towards us! It freaked David out a little...and I was laughing so hard I was crying! David was brave enough to snap some pictures of the sight! He did not find it as funny as I did.

That night we decided to take advantage of the Early Bird Special at the restaurant at our hotel. We had a delicious three course meal. The following morning, Sunday, we decided to drive through Savannah on our way home. We made it to Savannah around 11 o'clock and decided to see if we could have lunch at Paula Deen's restaurant, The Lady and Sons. Lucky for us, there was several reservations still open so we selected 12:45. We went for a walk on River street while we waited for our appointed time. Lunch was fabulous! Sunday is a buffet only meal and it featured baked and fried chicken, several veggies and of course dessert! My favorite dish was the collard greens! Boy were they good! After lunch, we decided to head back home. We made it back around 5 that evening. It was a very relaxing weekend...and was made even more enjoyable by the surprise of it! I love it when my husband surprises me! He is truly a wonderful man and I thank God for him daily.

This coming Sunday we are headed to Long Beach, California for the annual Chick-fil-A Operator's Seminar. I look forward to the week and I can't wait to update with details from the trip!

OSUM!!

Audrey is in Kindergarten this year and is really enjoying learning to read and write words other than her name. She loves to practice her reading and writing. She has been writing me notes lately...and she's always telling me that she wrote them all by herself and no one helped her. Usually they just say "I love you Mom...Audrey Lindley" but tonight I found another note that she wrote....

"I see them teace the cau on a woc. I love you Mom. I like Kailyn." (Kailyn is her best friend at school) I think she meant "I see them take the cow on a walk."...(she was already asleep when I found the note, so I couldn't ask her)....but, the best part came when I turned over the paper and found....."OSUM!" and that is how Audrey spells AWESOME!

Lunch Date!

Lunch with friends at the CFA corporate office! That's Me, Amy Cathy, and LeighAnn! Good times! :)

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Reminiscing....

My best friend, LeighAnn, recently had a birthday...and her awesome husband surprised her with a trip this spring to her favorite city (and mine!) New York!! The last time he surprised her with a trip to "the city" (our affectionate name for it) was Christmas of 2006 when he collaborated with my husband for a joint gift. They sent the both of us for a weekend trip....GIRLS ONLY! It was fabulous! I can't believe our weekend was 2 years ago this week! We had a wonderful time and had a great getaway. I posted a blog about it on my myspace page shortly after we returned....so, seeing as it's the anniversary of our trip, (and in honor of LeighAnn's upcoming trip) I thought I'd repost my blog detailing our trip. Enjoy!! :) [By the way, Leigh...I think it's time for another girls only trip!!]

So...you all know that LeighAnn and I took a trip to NYC this past weekend courtesy of the sweetest husbands on earth. I just thought I'd "spill the beans" on our trip. (Don't worry LeighAnn...I won't spill all of them!!)

So, we left for New York early Thursday morning -- earlier than we had planned because Delta cancelled our original flight! OH NO! We were able to secure seats on the flight that left an hour earlier than our original flight. So, despite some pretty heavy turbulence about half-way through we made it to NYC by about 11:00 or so. We took a cab to our hotel and seeing as how check-in isn't until 3 and it's wasn't even noon yet, our room wasn't ready. We stayed at the Marriot Marquis in Times Square and fortunately for us, they had a baggage holding area so we didn't have to hold on to our luggage for 4 hours!

Since we had to wait to "check-in" officially, we decided to walk down to Grand Central Station for lunch. We ate at Juniors and then went to "stand-by" at Rachael Ray....sadly, there were no tickets available. They even turned away people that had tickets!! Apparently, they overbook to ensure a full audience. So...after freezing while standing in line for about an hour, we warmed up w/coffee at Starbucks and then headed back towards the hotel. We were finally able to check-in (our room was on the 42nd floor with a partial view of Times Square). We shopped for a while in Times Square until it was time for dinner (at Carmines! -- they have delicious Chicken Parm.) and then of to Mary Poppins -- which was PHENOMENAL!!!! I was very impressed w/the show! It is definitely one I could see again and again!

On Friday...we decided we would go sight-seeing. So...we hailed a cab to go to the World Trade Center. I had chills all over the whole time we were there. We walked around for quite a while....looked at all the memorial photo's....then walked over to South Seaport. There we had the BEST Mexican lunch at "Red." It was FAB!!! SO yummy! From there we walked all over the city.....and I mean ALL over. Miles and miles!!! We went to see the Statue of Liberty -- from a distance anyway, we didn't go on the Ferry because it was a very overcast day, sort of dreary. We did walk around Battery Park a little...then we made our way towards the Empire State Building and along the way saw the Book Store that was used as a model for You've got Mail. It was very quaint, complete with dancing cupcakes in the adjacent snack shop. We also stopped at the Scholastic book store. We went inside the Empire St. Bldg but didn't go up because the visibility was only 1 mile. It's not worth the $20 if you can't see anything! From the Empire St. Bldg. we hailed a cab back to the hotel to get ready for Lion King. We went to Bubba Gump for dinner because of our Pizza fiasco. We were told by the Conceirge at our hotel there was a great (reasonably priced) pizza place 2 blocks down -- turns out, it was not so reasonably priced! We knew of another pizza place closer to our hotel (and the Lion King -- it was right across the street from the hotel) but it was PACKED and we only had an hour. So we scarfed down our Bubba Gump and made it to The Lion King with 15 minutes to spare! The show was GREAT! We had awesome seats...center front row on the balcony. It was quite a night of entertainment!

On Saturday we went SHOPPING! We walked down to Central Park for breakfast then walked all around Madison for the shopping. We went to both Trump Towers and went to so many stores! We probably had the most fun shopping in Bloomingdales...the "concierge" there really helped us out a lot and we learned you really have to be in shape to try on spanx! (enough said!). We basically shopped all day....finally made it back to the hotel at a good time for dinner. We ate at Johns Pizza (the place that was packed the night before) and chowed down! It was the best pizza! We had a yummy garlic, spinach, and tomato pizza.....So yummy.... After that, we shopped a little more at Times Square...went to Toys R Us, M&M World, and the Hershey Store. From there we decided to go have a nice dessert and ended up at Bubba Gump again. The waitress was EXTREMELY chatty....turns out, she was from GA and she and I went to the same college...AND her name was Angie! Weird!!! After dessert we just went back to the hotel. On the way back to our hotel (a total of 1 1/2 blocks) we stopped to take pictures of Times Square and that's when a couple of strange men wanted us to take their picture (see my pic's!)....we obliged just so they would leave us alone. They were obviously quite intoxicated and wanted to know why people told them they should not wear pink! There really is never a dull moment in Times Square!!!!

Sunday...we had to leave the hotel by 8:30 to get to the airport in time for our flight and we encountered one of the worst cab drivers ever! He had NO idea how to get to the airport and spent the entire trip holding a map and talking (more like yelling) on the cell phone (I guess to a dispatch operator or something)!! He talked in his native tongue which I didn't even recognize, drove about 90 miles an hour and if that wasn't bad enough, he was a spit talker!! GROSS! So, anyway...the trip to the airport was $33 and since we were really surprised we made it there we decided to just give him $35....the guy looks at the cash and says...the fare is $33 and you only give me $2 tip???? We were SHOCKED! So, LeighAnn says "Have a nice day" and we walked away!!!! I was trying so hard not to crack up laughing in front of the guy! He's lucky he even got any tip at all! And we thanked our lucky stars that we made it to the airport!

We really had a great time (can you tell?) and have decided we must take a trip together annually! It went by so fast we weren't ready to go home!! However, we did get the warmest welcome any Mommy could ask for....as we entered into the baggage claim area in ATL we were greeted by those wonderful husbands of ours....ALL 5 of our children (my 3 and LeighAnn's 2) complete with "Welcome Home Mommy" signs.....it was precious!