The Best Worst Birthday

The universe was trying really hard to ruin my birthday, and it almost succeeded. Thanks to a handful of AMAZING people I was still able to have an absolutely wonderful birthday. Here's what happened....

The festivities started last Thursday. Thursdays are my long days, I am at Coffee Buzz from 6am-6pm but this particular Thursday wasn't so bad. I was excited for the weekend and in a great mood, the day was going by quickly and all was right in the world. Then, my darling fiance showed up unannounced with my b-day gift. He had just gotten it and couldn't wait to give it to me. He (and my future in-laws) got me the NOOK COLOR!

I began playing with it instantly and absolutely LOVE it! Seriously amazing! I'm reading Little Women on it right now (can you believe I've never read that book?)

On Friday I worked at Coffee Buzz in the morning and Mary Kay's Bridal in the afternoon, then J and I went to my dad's house for dinner. We had an amazing time! My dad made a fire and grilled steaks, we enjoyed some wine, watched my favorite show Friends, played darts and opened presents.

At 10:00pm the fifth biggest snow storm in Minnesota history began. For this reason, J and I decided to sleep at my dad's. I wanted to have a "sleepover" so we decided to sleep in the basement on the couch. I have had countless sleepovers in that basement and it was fun to be snuggled up with my fiance, and he even let me watch Little Mermaid.

Saturday we had to get up early to get to Coffee Buzz. The snow was coming down pretty hard at this point but we surprisingly made it to work on time. It was slow. Like, really slow. No one was coming out in this weather, be it for coffee or anything else. When it looks like this outside...

You spend the day doing this....

I love that Nook!

At around 10:30am I left work with plans to workout, go tanning and get a mani/pedi before my big birthday dinner at PF Changs. I went to the gym and got in a great workout, but when I left everything went downhill. Keep in mind it has now been snowing for over 12 hours. Somewhere between the gym and 5 miles later I snapped a belt in my engine, or whatever. I was on the highway (only going 10 miles an hour mind you) and my steering wheel froze, my break light came on and my battery light came on. Thank the Lord for watching over me because luckily I was right at the exit by the house I grew up in and I just happen to take my car to a place right near there. I exited, got to the autoshop and then got stuck trying to get up the hill to their parking lot. As I ran to the door they were putting up a sign saying, "Closed Early Due to Weather." Thank the Lord again, they helped me. They kind of had to, my car was stuck and completely blocking the entrance to their shop. Eric (my guardian angel) took a quick peak and found out fast that I had snapped a belt and my engine was overheating....great. It took 4 guys to get my car to a spot where they could leave it until Monday. This was the point where I started to cry......I didn't know how much damage there was. I didn't know how much this was going to cost me. I didn't know how I was going to get home. And, I was supposed to be having this amazing pre-birthday relaxing day and this damn snow was ruining it. J ended up closing Coffee Buzz early and came to get me. It took over an hour but we were finally home. I was still crying.

J made a fire, we watched Home Alone and made a game plan for my birthday. Because of the crazy storm we knew we had to cancel dinner. Luckily, most of my friends were able to reschedule for Monday. Somehow, J was able to convince my BB, her fiance Jake, and my friend Robyn to come over to our place for the night to still have a celebration. After a while, it was clear that Robyn's station wagon was not remotely capable of making the trek to our house. Because my fiance is the most amazing person on the entire planet he decided that nothing was going to ruin my birthday....not even 20 inches of snow. So, he hopped in his tiny little Kia and set out to pick up his brother and my beloved friend Robyn. A trip that should have been no more than 30 minutes took him over 3 hours. But, finally, at around 9pm I had five of my favorite people in the world at my house. We had a fire, we were playing games and we were having drinks....a lot of drinks. The night was a blast! Words cannot express how much it meant to me that these amazing people cared enough about me to make my birthday special against all odds. I feel so blessed.

Thank you self timer!

We woke up at 9:45am on Sunday morning, my birthday. We had brunch plans with my Aunt and Uncle at 11am. Thankfully, Travis (J's brother) offered to drive Robyn back home. So we all packed in the Kia to bring Travis and Robyn home to Trav's...well, J's car wouldn't start. You have got to be kidding me. After about 20 minutes we were able to get it jumped and we were on our way....I called my Aunt letting her know we'd be about 15 minutes late. We pulled up to Trav's to see his car completely buried in almost 2 feet of snow. There was no way that car was getting out of the driveway without at least three hours of shoveling. We decided to bring Robyn back to our place where she could hang out and get a ride or wait until we were done with brunch to bring her home. So, I called my Aunt and let her know we'd be about 30 minutes late. So we drop Robyn off with my house key and instructions on how to open our extremely difficult front door. It takes a lot of pulling and key jingling to get that bad boy open. We were on the road on our way to brunch and Robyn calls....

"Your front door broke!"
"Excuse me? WHAT?! Are you frickin (I may have said something worse than that) kidding?"
"Ummm, yeah, a bunch of wood just snapped off."
"OK, we'll be right there."

Then I called my Aunt and said we weren't coming to brunch. At this point, I was over it. What else could go wrong? I don't even want to celebrate, I would rather just be warm in my bed. J went and checked the door and a big piece of wood from in the door frame snapped off. After fuming in the car for about 10 minutes I got it together and said, "SCREW IT! I am celebrating my damn birthday if it kills me! I'm not going to let all this stupid stuff get me down." So I called my Aunt and said we were coming to brunch. At about 12:30pm we were finally sitting down at Fat Nat's eating an amazing meal!

I got an Italian Sausage Eggs Benedict with "spicy avacado verde." It was soooo stinkin' good! I was proud of myself though, I only ate half of it....Wedding Day Diet ya know.

The plan was to then go see Chronicles of Narnia because I am dying to see it, but since brunch started late we didn't have much time. We decided a nap would be much more beneficial and that we could see the movie another time. This turned out to be a great decision....that nap was amazing! For dinner, we went downtown to one of my favorite restaurants Ichiban. We met my mom and step-dad, little brother and step-sisters and their significant others! The food was amazing (as always) and we all had a great time!

Me and my Panda, an amazing Rum and Peach Schnapps drink served in this adorable Panda Souvenir glass. A-O-Pi's represent! :)


Our amazing chef, Bai


The best fried rice in the world, honestly, I'm obsessed!


My date


My birthday fried rice....INCREDIBLE!


The fam


My beautiful mama


My baby brother

Because my fiance is the bomb.com he let me switch my day off from Tuesday to Monday so I got a long birthday weekend. So I spent yesterday doing all the things I was supposed to do on Saturday. I got a facial which was incredible! If I keep those up like I plan to my face is going to be amazing for the wedding! :) Then I went and got a mani/pedi.

This is one of OPI's new polishes from the Burlesque collection....Show It and Glow It.
I am LOVING IT!

After my super relaxing facial and amazing mani/pedi I went to pick up my car. $500 later and I was throwing a hissy fit. I had a immature moment where I cried, cursed and asked "why me?" and yelled "this isn't fair." I spent most of my birthday money on fixing my car and I was furious. But, there was nothing I could do and I have since moved on. I got home with just enough time to shower and get ready for dinner when I realized that I now had my keys and not J's keys....my set of keys was short one house key because I had given it to Robyn the day before to open our door and the key was still inside. I was locked out. This is a joke right? I looked at my phone and it was 5:55pm and our office closes at 6:00pm....thank the Lord one more time they were still there and able to give me a spare key. I got in the house and had about 30 minutes to get ready. I hurried my booty up and then enjoyed a fabulous dinner at PF Changs with some of my very bestest friends.

Despite crappy weather and crappy unfortunate events I had a wonderful birthday. Thank you so much to everyone who celebrated and made me feel so loved and so lucky. I love you all, especially you JJ....you have no idea, if possible I fell even more in love with you this weekend.