The Last Half

So, I'm finally getting around to finishing the last half of my birthday date! I believe I left off with Travis whisking the kids away so I could have uninterrupted time (a precious commodity!)! Well, when he arrived home the kids all came in bearing Dollar Store gifts, Jeremiah bought me a heart balloon, Lilly a bouquet of flowers with sparkly eggs mixed in, and Isaiah brought me a huge pink eraser with the words 'For BIG mistakes'...I meant to take a picture of each child with their gift, but we rushed from the house for the next part of our date.

The next part consisted of driving to Scio with Jessica...to where her horse is kept. : ) Yup, we went on a guided horse ride! We got to help brush the horses down, bring them out of the pen, saddle them (well, Travis helped with that part...I probably would hit myself in the head with the stir-ups!). And away we went. I have some pictures that are currently downloading. I've decided to start taking more pictures of Travis and I together, just a random extra. : ) Surprisingly I wasn't really all that sore afterwards, pretty proud of that actually. : )

Next, we raced back to Salem for our romantic dinner provided by our friend Jay (who just happens to be the best cook, hence the whole catering business thing he has : ). Well, we made it back a little early so we took a little trip to Borders (we'd been there earlier, but I had a sneaky suspicion I was getting some books for my birthday so we didn't buy anything). I received some books for my birthday and we rounded out the Jane Austen collection for 50% off, so now I have five of her six books in the same printers/cover style! Unfortunately, it's the Borders brand, so I will probably never finish the set! (Northganger Abbey is the last...and I've never actually seen the movie or read the book, but from what I can gather it's not the best of the group : ) And then to our dinner. Jay had cleaned out the carport and set up a nice table complete with flowers, lamp in the corner and a picture on the 'wall'. I think there were three courses, started with breadsticks and greenbeans, followed by a delicious salad and then spinach ravioli with a oh, so smooth and good and creamy white sauce, yummy, now I want some more! All that was followed by a Tiramisu that was actually really good (it's not on my list of favorites, but this one could make it easily!). Oh, and did I mention the weather was a perfect? Just warm enough and yet still had a breeze and it lasted through the outside dinner, aah.

When we arrived home the children were all in bed, I got a 'rain check' for a frappuccino from the babysitter and we watched a girly movie...honestly I can't remember what it was, but it could have been Bleak House or possibly Wives and Daughters. It was a wonderful, fabulous, RELAXING day...the next day was quite the opposite after being so spoiled! : )