Non-Mother's Day Gift

A few days ago, I had been talking to my niece, Katie, about how she loves to draw and her favorite type of butterfly. Of course, I asked her to draw me a picture. Tonight, we all had dinner at my parents' house and she gave me this awesome drawing of a butterfly...

And this cute little note. Here is what it said.

"Happy Mother's Day! 

Happy Mother's Day to you. But wait, you are not a mother!

Well then kinda Mother's Day.

But even though you are not a mother...

Everyday I'm with you it's a special occasion."

I loved her sweet little note and that she still thought of me even though I'm not a mom yet.

Thank you Katie!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Since we only owned one car and knew we needed a second, Jake and I have been saving up so we could a buy a truck as "his" car. We had been looking around online for a bit in Hawaii and had found some really great deals on Nissan Frontiers and Toyota Tacomas, which were what we were wanting to buy. I was out cleaning a house a couple days before my birthday and when I got back, Jake told me he went and looked at a truck but the guy wasn't willing to budge on the price of the truck.

Bummer.

Well, I showered off and changed before we went to my parents' house for my birthday dinner a couple days early. Jake seemed to be disappearing fairly often but I didn't think much of it because he had said that he was certain the man selling the truck would come down on the price and he motion to me that he is who he was talking to.

Bam. He got the price he wanted and we needed to leave just then to pick it up. I was so excited that Jake was going to get his car that I knew he really wanted. He continuously told me that he did not mind one bit driving around my girly little white two door with the spoiler on the back and crystal chain hanging from the rear view mirror but it made me feel so good that this would be his man mobile! And let's face it, I've always had a thing for guys in trucks.

On the way there, he pulled up a picture of the "truck" and it wasn't.

It was actually my birthday present.

A brand new (to us) Nissan Xterra with the Off Road package, the big wheels, the sports rack, the fold-back-into-a-truck-bed seats, the side steps, and automatic.

He knows I love big cars *refer to above statement about trucks* and bought the Xterra I have been wishing I had for the past 4ish years, even down to the bigger model. What a freaking stud.

He even apologized that it wasn't black, but silver was all they had. At this point, color does not even matter. He definitely got a big I-love-you-so-much thank you!

So happy birthday to me. We needed a family car sometime anyways, right? And he is excited to drive it, too. But now I have to do something really huge to out-do this birthday surprise.

Wish I had a better picture.

Journey-ed.

We made it to Arizona. Finally. 

We made a brief stop in Vegas and went to a buffet looking uber-classy.

Everyone else around us were wearing sparkling dresses and clean ironed shirts, so of course we didn't stand out when I forgot my soccer shorts didn't have pockets and stuck my phone in my bra. 

I didn't have any other choice.

A few other highlights included

1. "Lucy", our 2005 Chevy coupe reaching 73,000 miles!
2. Seeing a guy running in the middle of nowhere running with a baton being escorted by a cop car. Jake and I both called each other at the same time and he answering with "...what the crap did we just see?"
3. Driving for an hour in only desert, seeing another random guy walking and being in the middle of desert for another two hours.*
4. Forgetting to put my gas cap/shutting the gas door when leaving the gas station. Jake saw it just before pulling out onto the road so we avoided that catastrophe.
5. Getting our rental car (to put the rest of our stuff in) for two days for only $70! They didn't even have a drop fee for returning in another state.

** If I had more room in the car and wasn't a little afraid of ending up dead on the side of the road, I would have picked him up and help him out. However, I watch too many movies and have some common sense.