Birthday Weekend Re-cap

Hey girls! Hope all of y'all had a great December weekend!

Saturday I celebrated my 27th birthday...woohoo! This one was super special because it was my first b-day as a married lady : )

Little did I know, Stephen had planned out TWO days worth of celebrations for me : )

On Friday morning, Stephen surprised me by telling me that he had taken off work for the entire day to take me to Eureka Springs (a little town with great shopping and Christmas decor that's about an hour away) for the day! He brought me my fav Pumpkin Spice latte, had flowers delivered to our house after breakfast and then gave me my b-day present from him (a brand new Canon camera) before we left for Eureka!

We started our day out in downtown Eureka Springs shopping and looking at the gorgeous Christmas decorations. We lucked out because Friday was the day that all of the local stores had "live windows" - tableaus featuring real people in each of their store windows! We LOVED this 40's pin-up girl inspired window at a cute little lingerie shop : )

After shopping, we went to one of our favorite haunts, the Crescent Hotel for a drink at Dr. Baker's Lounge, a bar on top of the hotel that overlooks the entire citiscape - gorgeous!

We finished the perfect day with dinner at our favorite E.S. restaurant, Ermilio's. I had the Shrimp Scampi over Linguini and it was AH-MA-ZING!

HEAVENS, y'all! Oh-so-good!

Saturday was my actual birthday and we spent the day being low key and watching the Georgia/LSU game! That night we dined at our favorite Bentonville restaurant, Fred's Hickory Inn. I'm a southern girl to my CORE, so of course I wanted brisket, barbeque and sweet tea for my birthday meal, haha!

This was honestly the best birthday ever. Not because it was super exciting, but because I've never been at a happier or more peaceful place in my life. No one's life is perfect, including mine. We all have our ups and downs and trust me, I've had mine. Right now is an "up". Who knows what tomorrow brings.

But oh girls, sitting on a park bench holding hands with Stephen as we laughed and cut-up and looked at Christmas decorations - that trumps any wild night in a club or huge birthday bash, (I've had those, too.)

There was a moment on Saturday afternoon; we were perched on the couch devouring our Chick-Fil-A and watching SEC football (that's our Saturday ritual). All of a sudden, we burst into some random rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", right there in the middle of the living room, full out Glee-style, hand movements and cheesy faces and all.

Sitting there, laughing and singing like a couple of loons, I was reminded that this marriage is a gift.

This marriage is THE gift, the most precious I've ever been given.

And frankly, what 27 year old woman could possibly wish for anything more?

Be blessed, lovelies-