Happy Birthday to me!

Last week, I had the pleasure of experiencing my first annual 29th birthday!  The great thing about having a birthday on a Sunday (especially the Sunday where we set our clocks back for daylight savings) is that you can really milk the birthday - it turned into a full weekend topped off with a full 25 hours of actual birthday!

If you follow me on Instagram, you know the birthday weekend started right as any special event should...

Delicious Baby Bites from Pastry Art Cafe

This was a great surprise - I had mentioned to Tim weeks ago how we needed to get baby bites because our friend, Justin always has them for different things for work and will bring us the extras.  It was such a treat to come home from work on Friday and have these waiting on me!  Side note...all of the flavors are absolutely delicious - except carrot cake.  Why would you muck it up with carrot cake?!  It's like having those boxes of chocolates with different fillings and then getting stuck with the orange filled chocolate.  Just stick with the classics.

Saturday, we had absolutely beautiful weather!  After going for a quick run outside, Tim and I headed to Vizzini Farms, a winery close to Birmingham for lunch and a tasting.  Their chicken salad is really good!  The wine "tour" wasn't exactly what I was expecting - not your traditional winery experience.  But, the wine was good and we enjoyed sitting outside and relaxing.  We also got quite a show when one of the horses escaped from the pen - they were able to get him wrangled back in but it was a little tense when he was headed toward the open road!

Vizzini Farms

That afternoon consisted of some football (isn't the season over yet?!?) - between Auburn and my Dallas Cowboys, let's just say I'm pretending both the NFL and NCAA players are on strike - something a la NHL.   Then, I picked the dinner place on Saturday night - one of my favs - Chuck's Fish.  It did not disappoint!!  We finally tried some of their sushi as an appetizer and I had some great grouper.

Chuck's Fish - also, me trying out lipstick  :)

Side story, I used to mercilessly good naturedly tease my mother about her animal print habit.  You know, something along the lines of "grrrr, tiger!"  It was always just a little bit too out there for my taste.  Well, as I'm finding out more and more in my old age (hey...I am 29 afterall), mothers must really do know best:

Feeling trendy in my new pumps (from Target)!

Sunday, my actual birthday - was pretty low key, but relaxing.  After I insisted, Tim brought me breakfast from Shipley's donuts.  I've said it before, there's something just so special about having breakfast out/brought in.  We only do this on vacation and it just makes it feel like a special occasion.  Probably means we need to eat breakfast out more often  :)

We also did a bit of shopping on Sunday - more on that later and went out to lunch.  Sunday night was spent catching up on Homeland episodes - we started watching it on Demand and now we're hooked!  The last I can remember being this into a series was watching episodes of 24 back in its hey days - cliffhangers anyone??  We're now caught up to the live season and its killing me not to be able to just start the next episode!  We also caught this great sunset at a place right by our house (walking distance...we're lucky, we know):

Last week was a busy week at work, but when I arrived on Monday, my awesome team had this waiting for me:

Edgar's Cake...yummm!!!

So sweet!  Liz & I

Along with the thoughtful birthday cards in the mail, sweet phone calls and texts + major facebook loving, overall - I'm feeling pretty spoiled!

A few things I'm planning to/have already spent my birthday $ on:

Booties

Pocket Camera **

**I have tried to buy this camera TWICE from Costco - the first time they sold it to us.  We checked out and waited in line at the stock place and then they proceed to tell us they're out of stock.  Why of course they can't put the $ back on our card - have to refund in cash.  It usually takes me approximately 2 million years to make any kind of decision on a purchase, so the fact that I had decided, we'd paid and waited -This girl was majorly disappointed  :(  To be continued.

I also browsed the electronics at Target where the salesman tried to talk me out of buying a camera.  He suggested I get a DSLR and I told him I already had one, was just looking for something to carry with me at all times that would replace my old camera from college.  He looked at me and said "isn't that what your phone is for?"  Apparently they don't work on commissions...

Some Kindle books from Amazon

Also, speaking of trendy...Tim and I have actually had more than one conversation on "oxblood" - I just have to have it!  Okay, so I've been having conversations on oxblood and Tim's looked at me like I'm insane.  I'm not usually much of a red person, but this shade just gets me!

I've recently bought tights, leggings, nailpolish, lipstick, faux leather skirt (I really am getting risky), etc in this shade and although I don't know if this is exactly oxblood, I also treated myself to this necklace:

Necklace

A tip on the above:  There's a facebook offer to get the above necklace for $13.  I HATE clicking on offers on Facebook, but I'll let you in a little tip - I still have my gmail account with my maiden name, but this could work for any old email account - or even set up a spam only account (which I recommend - I use my maiden name email frequently when I have to enter an address to get an offer).  I created a dummy facebook profile with that old email address (so if for some reason you've found me as Lyndsay Long and I've declined, now you'll understand why).  I think I've successfully set it so that no one can search me.  I do everything on that profile that I don't want to do on my actual profile - connects with Spotify (or anything else you have to have a facebook profile for), claim offers, etc.  I used my dummy account and got the above necklace shipped for $13 total!  Sweet!

If the rest of the year turns out anything like the birthday weekend...I think 29 is looking pretty "sweet!"

Catching Up

Whew, it's been quite a whirlwind few months in the Snider household!  We last left off with this pic:

I've been all of those place (Dallas), plus a trip to the lake, the 4th of July Holiday, Labor Day and I still haven't caught you up on my LAST Dallas trip or our 5th wedding anniversary!  Why bother catching you up?  Because I get the pleasure of reliving these last few amazing months now that I am finally able to take a breath and slow things down a bit!  You've probably seen pictures on facebook, but you haven't been able to really hear the stories (well, at least the "you" is probably my mom and the two other people who read this blog).  But, I promised I would make this my online scrapbook - therefore this is kind of like those furious scrapbook weekends where you're throwing pictures on a pretty patterned page from 2 years ago  :)

So, after Amber and John's wedding weekend, Tim & I and hung around Dallas for a few days to see friends and hang with family.

Sunday evening, we headed over to Ross & Sally's to see Forrest & the rest of the Bouje gang that was in town for Memorial Day.  We all decided to just grab whatever and have a random dinner of pizzas, fruit, guacamole, and cheese/crackers.  I'm also certain there was dessert.  To me, that's what really makes a friendship - its when you can just show up, no fancy plates or presentation and just be (what, you thought I was going to say dessert?).  It's just comfortable.

We hung at their pool and had some great conversations - each of us shared our highs and lows of the past year and what had been going on with each of us - so relaxing and encouraging.

Scrapbook page!

Memorial Day was spent at Mom and Allen's pool with Ryan, until I packed the hubby up and sent him back to work!  I headed to my Dad & Renee's to celebrate a belated birthday for Ryan.

Dad, Ryan, me
Katie & Will - celebrating Ryan's birthday

Before I left, I had to get in some quality time with Tim and I's godson, Landon (oh yeah, and I guess his mom Lisa).   We took him to Starbucks and Lisa & I met our good friend from high school, Ayla for lunch at Kona Grill...why does Birmingham not have a Kona Grill??  It's delicious!!  Ayla was 5 months pregnant at this time, although you seriously could not tell!  She just had a precious baby girl, who I got to meet on my next trip to Dallas - more pics later!

Before I knew it, it was time to head home...another great Dallas trip!

Tim's 30th Birthday

Tim recently celebrated a big birthday and I knew we had to celebrate!  I invited some friends to join us for happy hour at Superior Grill (although it lasted quite a bit longer than happy hour!).  Superior Grill is a really fun spot for weeknights - they have a band on Thursday nights starting at 7 which is always a good time.



Tim, Justin & Ken




So good to see Marilyn, my grad school roomie!





Derrick, Tim & Brett





Emily Ann, me & Marilyn



Had to get at least one shot of the two of us!



 We had a lot of fun and there was a good turn out, as shown by the empty table at the end of the night.....

Wish I had taken more pics - thanks to everyone who came!!  Tim's actual birthday was on a Monday, so he and I went to dinner at Stix in Birmingham.  I couldn't believe he picked a sushi place for his meal, but he had tried a roll there recently that he really liked and he always likes the cooked Japanese food.



Dinner at Stix - Tim's actual birthday

The following Wednesday, we were invited to attend a supper club at Gian Marco's in Birmingham (which has amazing food by the way) and I couldn't help but make him suffer the embarassment of blowing out some birthday candles...plus, I always love an excuse for something sweet...even if there wasn't any chocolate...just sayin.



Tim's pick - strawberry cake!



I've yet to get him a real present (doesn't my NYC souvineer t-shirt I brought him count?)....Tim's tough to buy for - he doesn't want a lot of things, but the things he wants he's very particular about.  I think we're going to look for a trail bike for him, but we'll see...stay tuned!

I'm the King of New York...

Around December of this past year, Allen called me with an awesome idea to surprise my mom for Mother's Day with a mother/daughter trip.  He suggested New York and I said yes in a heartbeat!!!  My dad has taken my once before and I actually spent a summer living in New York with one of my college friends, Jill.  I interned for JPMorganChase & she interned for Last Call with Carson Daly (you can guess who had more fun at work...)  I haven't gone back since Jill and I left in 2005 and was so excited to revisit.  Plus, it was so incredible just to spend the quality time with my mom.  We are pretty compatible travel buddies!

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I started off the trip in the Birmingham airport with a Starbucks treat and one of the more interesting spellings of Lyndsay I've seen...

Is the barista trying to tell me something??

After a little snafu with our cab driver, Mom and I got to the hotel around 5:30 NY time.  As a side note:  we bought groupons before we went for ground transport to and from the airport.  DO NOT USE GROUNDLINK.  It was convenient to have the driver prearranged and the experience in NYC wasn't too bad, however their customer service is horrendous - I've written a letter to their corporate headquarters and promised to share how terrible my experience was, so I'm holding true.  Another funny story - Mom & I obviously don't go to LaGuardia often - apparently, you can have a "Concourse D" which is in "Terminal B" and Delta also flies into two different terminals.  We both thought we were in a different terminal than we were and it took us a while to meet up!

We decided to take Thursday evening easy and walked around the corner to a little pizza place called Aperitivo for dinner.



So excited to be in NYC!

Delicious!!

Yummmm

We had a good laugh because neither mom and I really packed appropriately - it was a lot chillier than we thought it would be.  We were joking around that we must have thought the surprise was Hawaii because we both packed all super summery clothes (I blame the heat spell we were having in Bham and Dallas).  We also stood out like sore thumbs - we saw people in pea coats and all dark colors.  This was Mom's best attempt at a warmer outfit:

We had to forego fashion for warmth - I was cracking up at her all white ensemble and she'll probably kill me for posting..

On Friday after a good rest the night before, we headed out to make some plans for that evening.  When Jill and I were in NY, we would always try to get rush tickets (day of tickets that are significantly discounted).  It can be hit or miss with whether the seats are good or not and whether or not you actually get tickets, but we knew we had tickets for the next night to another show, so we thought we'd just try.  For more info on rush tickets, see this website.  We were able to get the last two tickets to Anything Goes for $30/piece!  After feeling successful about our purchase, we decided to do some shopping and stopped for lunch at BG's which is a restaurant on the top floor of Bergdorf Goodman's.  The food was amazing - we both said it was our favorite meal of the trip.  We shared the seared scallop appetizer and the chicken milanese salad.  It was plenty of food and soooo good.  The salad was surprisingly my favorite - the chicken was so tender.  We liked the food so much we tried to go back another time on the trip, but they were closed.  :(

Feeling fancy at BG's

We did some browsing and then did some walking around the area.

Enjoying the little bit of good weather

If you know mom or I at all, you know we may be ordering a salad at lunch, but we're both candy fanatics and can never pass on something sweet.  I had heard of Dylan's Candy Bar, but never been so we decided to stop in for an afternoon dessert (what, afternoon dessert isn't one of your regular meals?)  The atmosphere was so much fun.  A candy store on bottom and a cafe upstairs with cupcakes, yogurt and other desserts.  Mom and I both settled on a cupcake (s'mores for me and chocolate peanut butter for her) and headed over to sit at a table - that's us in the giant cupcake table below!

Sadly, I have to report - these cupcakes look great, but were NOT good.  They were extremely dry and hard.  Mom didn't eat any of hers - she shared a little bit of mine, but even between the two of us, we still left some on the plate (a true tragedy).

At Dylan's

That evening, we cleaned up a bit and got ready to go see Anything Goes.

Cheers!  At the Waldorf

Our tickets were in the last row of the theater, but there was a significant elevation and the theater wasn't too big, so we really ended up enjoying our seats.  Anything Goes was cute - neither Mom nor I had seen it before and it was one we wanted to check off the list.  It's got several cute love stories and was a real "feel good" show.

Anything Goes at Stephen Sondheim Theater

When we got home that evening, we were treated by Allen with chocolate covered strawberries waiting in the room - thank you!!

Saturday morning, we had REALLY given up on all hopes of being fashionable and both decided it was a tennis shoe day all the way.  You'll notice fewer pics were taking on this day! 


Mom's right on trend with her neon shoes

Because the weather was a little bit gloomy, we decided we'd try our hand at the ticket lottery for Book of Mormon (we both really wanted to see but couldn't find reasonable tickets), but not before we started with a traditional NY breakfast...

Loving the NY bagels

We put in our names for the lottery (we had actually also tried the day before) and crossed our fingers - I had good luck with Wicked when it first came out - I won the second time we tried, so I was optimistic.

Sadly, we were not winners, but all hope was not lost...one of the people won (who just happened to be a Mormon from Utah!) had Spiderman tickets for that afternoon and since he won the Book of Mormon tickets, he didn't need them.  Mom and I scooped them up (I think we only paid like $40/ticket) and decided we'd see the Spiderman matinee instead!!

Killing an hour before the Spiderman performance

Heyyyy Spidey!

The show was good but the special effects were incredible.  I certainly understand why its the most expensive production in the history of Broadway.  Spiderman would jump from the highest balcony and "fly" over the crowd.  There was even a fight scene with Spiderman and the Green Goblin suspended above the crowd.  

Stopping in Rockefeller Center after the show

After sharing a burger and the most massive sundae you've seen at HB Burger, it was time for the event I had been looking forward to the very most......

My mothers day gift to my mom was tickets to Newsies.  She hadn't seen the movie, but I knew she'd love it.  Let me tell you, it did NOT disappoint!  I absolutely loved the show - definitely in my top 4 of all-time (others I'd put in there - Les Mis, Wicked & Titanic).  The music was fabulous and the dancing was great too - there were two dancers in the cast who had been on So You Think You Can Dance (Alex and Jess).  I think I've still had the music stuck in my head these last few weeks (hence the post title...I'm also loving The World Will Know).  I'd love to see it again and would recommend to anyone!

Sunday was our last day so we decided to we needed to take the subway at least once and headed out to Canal Street in Chinatown.  Mom found a cute wallet and scarf, but I was a little stressed by the "pressure buying." 

Taking the subway to Canal Street

After a street vendor lunch and a quick souvenir stop for Tim, it was time to head to the airport.    Saying goodbye was sad, but I know it was a vacation I'll remember forever.  Thanks for the wonderful memories and for such an amazing trip!!

Happy Belated New Year!

What's that you say?  New Years was a few weeks ago?  Better late than never!

I have always been in the camp that New Years is way overrated - crowds, expensive and who thought it was a good idea to have a party that doesn't really START until midnight?  Call me old, but I've never been much of a night owl. 

This year, we did something different - our friends Ken and Kylie (who we originally met through Justin and Nichole - Ken & Nichole work at UAB together) invited us and a few other friends to their house for the evening - my kind of New Years party!  Nichole was on call/at the hospital that day and night so Tim and I went with Justin and Justin's dad and Tracy early for some light food at McCormick & Schmidt's.  We love this place, but heard it closed down shortly after New Years  :(  I had my fav - oysters & a little lobster bisque.


NYE 2011/2012



McCormick & Schmidt's

We then headed to Ken & Kylie's where they had prepared even more delicious food.  Kylie had also gotten these cute 2012 glasses.

me, Kim, Kylie & Nichole

Kim & Scott

Steve & Tracey

Ken & Kylie

We watched Auburn win the Chick-fil-a bowl (part of it using the 3-D glasses which was intense - I think it would make me sick watching all the time?!)  WARE EAGLE!  Here's where I must admit - I started to fade around 10:30...may have dozed a bit on the couch.  I just can't sit for too long at that time of night without getting sleepy!  But, I told myself - push through...you can make it.  We got up and watched the ball drop in New York!

Happy New Year!!



Cheers!  (East Coast Countdown)

And then....I rallied!  All it took was a little bit of friendly competition.  Nothing wakes me up quite like the heat of battle.  Ken & Kylie have the Kinect system for XBox which I'd never seen before.  The best way I could describe it is its like Wii without the remote - it has a sensor that captures your body movements.  We played a bowling game and it was so much fun!  The biggest surprise was at the end of each game the system would play back RECORDED reactions from your game - so funny!!!  You could see your victory dance or a grimace when you rolled a gutter ball.  Plus, its pretty hilarious to watch yourself bowl without a bowling ball.  I wasn't too bad at this game if I do say so myself....certainly bowled better than I've ever bowled in real life.



So animated!

After a few games, we toasted the New Year in BOTH the Central and Mountain times - aren't you impressed?  We even wrapped it up with a little dance party...

Lots of fun!  Great way to celebrate 2012!