Josh's Birthday Adventures and Surprises!

Warning: SUPER long post! My Apologies!

Yesterday was Josh's birthday and we decided we would go to Muir Woods, which is a National Monument we have been wanting to visit for some time now. It was so beautiful, but of course it didn't take long for the walk to become a disaster - more on that later....

Here is Josh next to a tree trunk thing that was dated back to 960 AD!!!!!!! So old!

The redwood trees were so pretty

The SUPER tall Redwood trees!

Me!

Right before all hell broke loose.

So about half way through the hike my legs started itching really bad. I remembered that I had shaved my legs that morning, (side note: I am allergic to basically every form of tree and grass) so with my freshly shaved legs with open pores on a windy day in a freaking redwood FOREST - the pollen naturally found its way into my pores. The itching got worse and WORSE. Then it was to the point of painful, and then I was getting light headed. I was itching and it was spreading all over my lower body super quick and was really unbearable.

So even though we were in such a beautiful setting with half of the trail left to go, we had no other option but to run the rest of the way. There was honestly no other option, I knew if I didn't rinse my legs off soon I was going to pass out or have some sort of panic attack haha. So we looked like idiots, running down the trail.
Then we finally made it to the park restrooms where I gave myself a quick water and paper towel wipe down, which somewhat eased the pain/itching long enough for us to run to the car. But of course, in the mean time, the wind was still acting up and my legs were at it again in no time. So once we got back to the Jetta I stripped down to my underwear (by this time the itching was creeping up my back too) and then I took another water and paper towel bath/wipe down. Luckily it started feeling much better once I was in the car and out of the wind, and I had damp napkins all over my legs. UGH!

We had originally planned to eat our yummy lunch that we packed along the trail, but that of course didn't happen. As soon as I was done car bathing I ordered Josh to get us out of the freaking redwood forest ASAP!

Once we were far enough away from the forest we pulled over on the side of the road and had our lunch! By this time I was feeling much better with food in my tummy and my legs cooling off.

The view of the bay from the Sausilito side

The Road, with some tourists of course

Then we came home and showered to get the pollen off of us, and then we headed out to run a few errands (or so Josh thought!) I told him I needed to get a price adjustment on a pair of jeans I recently bought, which was true, in order to get him to the mall so that I could surprise him with his gift!

As a little background info, Josh makes iPhone Apps, but he doesn't have a Mac, so he has to use his Mom's computer whenever he wants to work on them. So needless to say he has been wanting a Mac for a while now. In addition, his birthday is this month, our anniversary next month, and Christmas in December, so I decided rather than spend a bunch of money for each occasion on things he may not really need/want, I would give him one large gift for all three things: A Mac Laptop!

There was only one problem: they are expensive, and what I had budgeted would only cover the basic MacBook, which I know he would like, but I knew for the money, it would be a much better investment to get him the upgraded MacBook Pro. So I thought and thought and came up with a solution: call in reinforcements!

So here is how it all went down: a complete surprise to Josh, thanks to my genius-ness.

First Step: I collected a card and $ from my parents, Josh's parents, his sister, and my brother to go along with my card. Then we went to the mall to do my price adjustment. After that we started to walk towards the door when I handed Josh the birthday card that I made for him :) In side it said how for his birthversarymas present I was going to get him a MacBook! He was so excited, and we instantly headed towards the Apple store!
Once inside, we went up to the bottom of the line MacBook which I told him I was going to get him, and then I haded him a card from my parents, which said that as their gift they were going to upgrade him to the MacBook Pro 13"!

Then after that card I handed him another card that was from his parents that said they were going to upgrade him to the MacBook Pro 15"!

Then I gave him another card from his sister that said for her gift she was going to upgrade him to the Anti-Glare Screen Option! By this time Josh was getting overwhelmed with all of the cards, and really embarrassed that I was taking pictures inside the Apple store hahaha

Then I handed him the last card which was from my brother that said he was going to get Josh the InCase brand case for his new laptop!

After all of the card craziness was over we asked one of the associates for help, so we could get the laptop, but sadly they were out of the one Josh wanted! Boo! So we went home and ordered it online and it should be here by the end of the week! yay! :)

After the mall we headed to Best Buy so Josh could spend some gift cards he had, then we headed home to hang out until it was time to go out for his birthday dinner. Little did Josh know there was one more surprise in store for him even though he asked me point blank: "Are there any more surprises!??" And of course I lied and said no! haha

Anyways, his parents drove up for dinner and surprised Josh, which was a lot of fun. Sadly his sister had to work last night at Victoria's Secret so she couldn't join us for dinner, so after dinner we went back to the mall and brought some yummy Cupcakes from Sift along and she was able to celebrate with us on her break!

The cupcake place only had cupcake sparklers - not candles - and we were going to lite all of them but there was a security guard watching us the whole time, so we just lit three haha

Then we came home and went for a quick walk, put our jammies on, watched Hell's Kitchen, and went to bed. It was a great day and I am so thankful I got to spend it with Josh and make it so special for him :)

I Love You Joshy! Happy Birthday!

-Katie