The dreaded birthday

It actually turned out to be a lot of fun. :) Let me tell you how it started...

Wednesday I got off work at 11am, went to get my truck inspected (had to go to 3 different places!), had lunch with mom, sister and nephew, renewed my tags, went for a swim. Came home, got all packed and had dinner with DH. Next morning got up (too early), waited for my ride, then hit the road for Nebraska for a cousin's wedding. My nephew was the most well behaved almost 3 year old car rider I've ever met! I was just amazed at how well he did for a 4 hour road trip. We got to the motel in Nebraska, went for a dip in their indoor pool, had KFC in our room (not a good idea, by the way) then got ready for the wedding. Very picturesque setting for a wedding in a park, with a nice lake, the 'altar' was surrounded by these huge evergreens. And it was located next to a big corn field (go figure). It was a very nice wedding, one where the whole family was involved. The mother-of-the-bride (who is actually my 1st cousin, guess that makes the bride my 2nd cousin? whatever, we're all cousins) played violin while her sons played drums, bass and guitar. Father of the bride walked her down the aisle, til they got to a certain point and she ran down the aisle to her groom. It was really sweet. :) There were vows and rings and blessings and the kiss, of course. Then they took pictures, while we admired the bride's dress and her lack of shoes (very fitting in her case). We had cake and ice cream and fruit and lemonade. We talked with family and told them how beautiful everything was. When it got dark we went back to the motel where we played gin and talked til we couldn't keep our eyes open.
Friday we got up, had breakfast at the motel, then packed up and headed for the zoo in Omaha. When we got there we had a picnic lunch under a tree then got to walking. We walked around that zoo for 5 hours! It is a truly remarkable zoo and I'm not sure we even saw everything, but it was well worth it. At the end of the day I was extremely overheated and nauseous and ready to come home, but I did come away with a stuffed elephant (it's a theme from zoos I've visited) and a shot glass for DH. The rest of the family wanted to get some dinner before we headed out so we stopped at an Applebee's in Iowa. All I could do was sip ice water and watch because I couldn't stomach food at that moment. Ick. I got home around 9:15pm and was dead asleep within 45 minutes. Sooooooo tired. But a good kind of tired. :)

Saturday, I gathered up a few good friends and headed down to a local karaoke bar.
Had some drinks, sang some songs, took some goofy pictures. Good times.

Sunday was my mom's birthday so we all went out to dinner. Good food, nephew who was being hilariously cute, no room for dessert. :)

Monday we went bowling. I know, sounds cheesy, turns out it's a lot of fun! We bowled 2 games, came home and chilled for a bit, then went over to mom's for more birthday fun. MY birthday. All of the extended family came out and celebrated. We had burgers and hot dogs and chicken on the grill. Ice cream cake for dessert...YUM!

Tuesday was my actual birthday. DH and I went out for dinner, just the 2 of us. Then we went over to Cabela's and walked around awhile, admired the HUGE catfish in their walk-thru aquarium, and oddly enough came outta there empty-handed. Next we went over to Nebraska Furniture Mart where I bought a new mp3 player with birthday money. So cool!

So that's my weekend. Sorry it took so long to write it down. ;)