Finally 21!!!

(Readers beware-long post ahead)

So, yesterday was the big day!  It was my 21st birthday!!  I was really hoping that Nate would take the day off, even though he had told me before that he was going to be working.  But on Thursday night, he broke the bad news to me and I wasn't very happy.  I was really sad because I really wanted to go and play all day since I'm stuck in our apartment every other day.  

So Friday morning came and he was supposed to go and install an alarm at like 9 am.  (Luckily, they cancelled, but he didn't tell me that, so he used that time to go and get my presents.)  Before he left, he dragged me out of bed into the family room.  Let's backtrack real quick a week or so.  Nate decided to do the "21 Days Until My Birthday".  He left a present somewhere around the house for me to find everyday.  I thought it was so much fun that he would do something so creative!  It was a blast finding little things all around the house!  He stopped like a week ago and I was all sorts of confused.  But yesterday morning when he brought me into the family room, I saw that he had laid out on the floor all the gifts that he hadn't given me yet.  He told me to get ready while he was gone because he had another surprise for me.  

So I hurried and got ready.  When he got home he made me lunch while I finished getting ready.  When I walked out to the family room so that we could leave, I found another surprise in there!

He put a bow on Memphis since he was 

technically one of my birthday gifts...

My cute birthday cake!

We were in a hurry to leave for the next surprise since he had to work that afternoon.  So we saved the presents for later and hurried out the door.  In the car, he told me that he had been planning on taking me to see the Memphis Fire Museum.  I had seen a Fire Museum a couple of weeks before and had wanted to go there.  (For those of you who don't know, my daddy is a retired Fireman and EMT)  It ended up being a different museum than the one we had seen, but it was really neat!  

They had a huge collection of patches from all over the 

country and look what we found!  They also had a Park City one.

The first building had a toy fire engine collection with thousands of little fire trucks!  They all belonged to one man, whose name I don't remember now.  

These are just a few. There were tons more! He had a lot of big ones too.

There were a few antique trucks on display there-they were so neat!  I know my dad would have loved this museum!

Following in my daddy's footsteps...

Check out the name on these!

This one is too small to see, but this badge and keys belonged to Henry L. Brenner.  (For those of you who don't see the irony here, my little brothers name is Brenner.)

So, they had a fire simulation room.  It was like a really cheap version of Back Draft.  We went in with a group of school kids that looked like they were maybe in 1st or 2nd grade.  I felt like such a baby.  They were all oohing and ahhing, and I was just praying that the room didn't really catch on fire, lol.  I am SUCH a wimp when it comes to fire!

We found this gorgeous fountain while we were walking 

around town after we were done at the museum.

Nate found this statue and we decided that it belonged to 

us since we are going to be very prosperous in this life :-P

Then we went back home and opened presents!!

The first one was a squeaky toy for Memphis!

This bottom one was a new kennel for him!  He hasn't been sleeping at nights in the carrier we bought him so we were hoping that by getting him a larger kennel that we could put his bed in, we could get him to sleep better.

After that, Nate had to go do a couple of service calls and then we were gonna have the rest of the night to ourselves!  He begged me to come with him so I didn't have to sit home alone.  So of course, I had to document it with a couple of pictures of him hard at work!

On our way back we finally snagged some pics at the stateline!

But the day was still young!  It's pretty much the law that you have to hit the casinos on your 21st birthday.  So that's exactly what we did!  We headed down to Tunica which is about 30-45 minutes away from our place.  

We stopped at Chic-Fil-A and grabbed some yummy milkshakes on the way down.  (Their new peach ones are AMAZING in case you were wondering!  Nate loved the strawberry one he got too.)  Anyways, they put cherries on top and I totally tied my stem in a knot with my mouth for the first time!  I guess turning 21 turns you into an amazing kisser!

I was not really into the whole gambling thing.  I played a couple of bucks in the slots, but didn't really get into it.  We spent most of our time walking around and just exploring the casinos.  It was pretty hilarious how bad all the guards sucked at math.  When they would look at my ID they would sit there forever trying to figure out how old I was.  I told the one guy that today was my 21st birthday (this was at like 11:30pm) and pulled out his phone and looked at the time and was like "well it looks like you have about 3o minutes until you can go in".  I just rolled my eyes and said, "Um no, TODAY is my 21st birthday.  The 5th, not the 6th."  He was like, "Oh ya, I guess you're right."  I wanted to say, well no duh I'm right, I think I know when my own birthday is.  But I just laughed and walked in.

This was the first casino I ever gambled in!

  

Here's a pic of my first time at the slots!

We ate dinner at a fancy little restaurant in the casino called The Atrium Cafe.  My traditional birthday dinner is chicken cordon bleu and mashed potatoes.  I was sad that I wasn't going to be home to have my mom make it for me :-P  LOL  But guess what the special of the night was at the restaurant?!  Chicken cordon bleu!!  Unfortunately it came with pasta and they couldn't substitute potatoes, but it was still really good.  The waiter even gave me a free slice of cheesecake since it was my birthday!  Can anyone guess what my favorite dessert is?  Yup, cheesecake!  I didn't even tell him that, he just brought it out!  I was really happy!!

So, that was how I spent my 21st birthday!  It was such an amazing day and I only have my husband to thank for that!  I love him with all my heart.  He never ceases to amaze me!  He is definitely Mr. Romantic.  Thanks for making it such a special day Honey!  I love you!!