Birthday Weekend!

My birthday was lat Friday, and my hubby decided to take me on an overnighter to Greenville, SC. Not very far from home, but hey, when you have a one year old you take any opportunity you can get to have time to yourself! We had been planning on going to this place called Hollywild with Nick's mom, brother, his wife, and two little girls.  Hollywild is near Greenville, so that's how the Greenville thing came about.

Started off the night at Perkins at Woodruff Rd. Perkins is pretty much the northern/sneaking south rendition of an IHOP. Thought we'd get a quick bite to eat and then go see the lights and animals. BUT I don't think anything can ever be quick with this fam...or this particular restaurant, turns out. But all kinks aside, we had a good (and entertaining) meal. And good pie. All I can say is this- THANK GOD for private dining rooms!

After we finally wrapped things up at Perkins we headed for the animal park. Hollywild is somewhat of a petting zoo/animal safari mix during most of the year. During Christmas, however, they put together quite an impressive drive through light display. Charlie LOVED it. I don't think he knew quite what was going on, but he was having fun trying to figure it out! After riding through the lights for awhile, you come upon this open field/pasture thing. This is where the fun begins, lol... Pretty much this turns into a 'free-for-all chase the herd of deer to try to feed them and don't run over the zebras while trying to keep the giant cow from crushing your car' kinda thing. Like a demolition derby animal safari. I guess that's good old fashioned Carolina fun for ya! Anyway, after we were done with the animal chasing, we headed to this little petting zoo area and got some hot chocolate. After awhile of that, we headed out into an empty parking lot. Once again, in true style, we closed the place down, lol...

"Blurry Whale"

Andre the Giant Cow

Our friend the tranquilized zebra.

Finally, at around 1:00 a.m., we made it to the hotel, took a Tylenol p.m., and promptly slept until 11:15 the next morning, missing the breakfast we had already paid for and the pool we wanted to swim in. But that's okay! We headed to downtown Greenville and got some lunch a this great little cafe called Trio's. I had the BBQ Chicken Pizza, which was yummmmmy! Next we went shopping - Mast's General Store, where we got lots of candy and cool stuff. Next we hit up O.P. Taylor's Toy Store and the Greenville Gem Mine...Then we took a break at a not very good chain coffee shop who I believe had Howard Stern working the intercom. We stumbled upon a little artsy shop where we got my birthday gift - a gold necklace with a pendant shaped like the tree of life. We wrapped it up with coffee and checkers at Brew & Ewe. Spent the rest of the day on Woodruff Road, hitting up some of the seemingly millions of stores they have there, then Anderson, where we ate dinner/breakfast at a real IHOP. Then we headed home!

My birthday "Mama" necklace

The outcome of the funnest checker game ever.

We had a wonderful much needed weekend away. My hubby is so sweet to whisk me away like that...