April 30th was Anthony's birthday. I had picked out my main gift for Anthony a couple of months earlier, and I was SO excited about giving it to him:
It is a book that contains literally EVERYTHING you could ever want to know about how the film "Star Wars" was made. He loved it! In addition to the book, I made Anthony breakfast in bed for his birthday (banana pancakes and eggs), and then he got to build his perfect day. I wrote down a bunch of free or inexpensive things we could do around Dallas for his birthday on index cards, then he got to build his perfect day with those cards. The first one he chose was to go watch a Little League baseball game. Well, despite my best efforts to double check all of the details, we arrived at the ball park and there were NO baseball games going on. Strike one. Pun intended.
After our failed attempt to watch a baseball game, we decided to pack up a picnic lunch and go to the Bishop Arts District a few miles from our apartment. It's a really cute little artsy downtown area very similar to Thomasville's downtown. We went to the Soda Gallery, which a great little shop with hundreds of bottles of vintage sodas from all over the world. The way in which Anthony picked his soda reminded me of how he picked his wedding band. While I was deliberating, overwhelmed by choices, carefully weighing the pros and cons of all my varying options, he pointed to a ring, asked how much it was, and bought it. Same thing with the cream soda.
Once we finished our picnic, we headed to the nearby tennis courts and played tennis for a couple of hours. We ended up buying two rackets and some balls with some of his birthday money, and we're hoping to play tennis more often and make it something active that we do together for fun. Later that night we watched Star Wars Episode Something or Other (I can never remember which one is which!).
The following Saturday (the day after Anthony's birthday), we drove down to College Station, TX and met up with Scott & Kathy for the day. Unfortunately Lea & Daniel couldn't make it, but we had a GREAT time hanging out! We had burgers at the same place we'd gone after Lea got engaged, then we went over to Texas A&M and walked around the campus for awhile. We finally found a dormitory where we could sit in the A/C and eat some cake together. The night before I had made Anthony's favorite cake: Tres Leches. He actually loves the cake from La Duni here in Dallas the best, but since their version requires a blow torch, I settled for the Pioneer Woman's version and he loves it:
After attempting to play a little disc golf on the campus course, we called it a day and headed back to Dallas. On our way home the melted ice in the cooler leaked into the cake, ruining the remaining cake. At first I was bummed because it's a pretty labor-intensive cake to make and there was a lot of it left, but it's probably a good thing in the end. It's pretty easy to lose your self-control around this cake, and let me just state, for the record, that it is NOT low calorie. Or low fat. Or low anything. But it's gooooood.
Last Wednesday Grandma & Grandpa Sieben stopped in Dallas for a short visit on their way home from a wedding. They got here around 9:00 a.m. and spent some time with Anthony while I was working. I pulled away from work for a long lunch, and they treated Anthony and me to a great lunch at Saltgrass Steakhouse. It was wonderful to spend some time with them and to have them see where we live.
In other news, WE'RE GOING TO GEORGIA IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS! I'm a little excited, if you can't tell. Our original plan was to go in July, but we reevaluated when the Mavericks lost so early in the playoffs, cutting Anthony's job short by a few weeks. We figured we'd go ahead and make our trip now while he's in between jobs instead of hoping he could get the time off in July. We'll fly into Atlanta on the 18th and my Mom will pick us up. We'll be in Thomasville until the 26th. This will be the first time I've seen my family since the wedding, with the exception of brunch with my parents on the last day of our honeymoon and Sarah's trip out here in March. And it will be the first trip to Thomasville in a year that hasn't been chock full of wedding preparations. I will actually be able to relax and enjoy the time with my family and in Thomasville. I'm really looking forward to it!
Well, if you made it this far, congratulations to you! Next time I will try to have more pictures. I'm sure we'll take lots on our trip to Georgia. I hope you're all doing great and that we get to see each of you very soon!
Much love,
Jenn :)
