My 25th Birthday

On Tuesday, I turned 25. I wasn't really looking forward to this birthday for some reason but Shannon went out of his way this year to make it extremely special. On May 14th, we drove to Richmond, Virginia to the stay the night. We weren't really sure what we were going to do the next day but we wanted to be out of town.

The boys went swimming at the hotel that night and had a blast. I didn't feel up for swimming but thoroughly enjoyed watching them play and swim. My little guy is such a water baby and I LOVE it.

The next morning I woke up pretty early and Shannon woke up soon after. He got ready and went to the store and I stayed at the hotel so we could let Samuel sleep. Meantime, I took a nice shower and just relaxed while my son slept. About an hour later, Shannon returned (Samuel woke up about 2 minutes before he got back).

 Shannon made me turn around and instructed Samuel to come to the door. He handed him something and Samuel brought me a balloon that said Happy Birthday on it.

Shannon told me to continue to stay where I was and hurried into the room. I wasn't sure what he was up to but I knew he was up to something! I continued to get ready while he and Samuel were "working" on something. Moments later Shannon walked in to the room with a birthday cake with candles and began singing Happy Birthday to me. Samuel was grinning ear to ear. It was the sweetest thing ever. He bought me a beautiful card and a bouquet of "chocolate bars" as well. The cake was shortbread with a delicious strawberry topping. Samuel stuck his fingers in it almost immediately. He LOVES strawberries. Shannon also bought me a beautiful charm for my Pandora bracelet. It was a butterfly. My morning with the boys was wonderful.

My strawberry shortcake birthday cake

My "chocolate bar" bouquet

Samuel sticking his fingers in my cake

Tasting it

Going back with two hands

Mmmmmm

He got the first piece!

My beautiful butterfly charm-

Two ways to remember Matty now

He told me that I could do whatever I wanted to do but I had no idea what I wanted to do. We finally decided to go to a local Children's Museum for a little while. Maybe it was more for Samuel but we had fun as well. There were several mama's there that were pregnant. It was hard to be around them but I did OKAY. We had lunch and then headed into Richmond while Samuel napped in the car.

Riding a train together

Playing the "sandbox"

Painting

We decided to visit an estate in Maymount that was located on 100-acres in Richmond. When we arrived, Samuel was still asleep so we decided to do some driving in the area. We returned about an hour later at around 5 p.m. to find out that they were closing down all the "tourist" stuff. The property was still opened until 7 p.m. but we couldn't go inside the house or anything like that. We were disappointed and almost left but decided to stay. I am SO glad we did. It was beautiful. Peaceful and quite. I love being that close to nature. We walked through beautiful gardens and hiked down to a beautiful Japanese Garden where a waterfall was located. It wasn't a "hard" hike but I realized how out of shape I was! We stayed for about 2 hours and all three of us enjoyed it. Samuel wanted to walk and loved smelling the flowers, seeing butterflies and loved the water. Six years ago on my birthday, Shannon had promised me that he would find me a waterfall. We never found one that day. When we decided to go to Maymount, we had no idea that there was a waterfall there. When we walked straight into one, I was so happy!

The house

Japanese Gardens

The waterfall!

Between the trees

SO beautiful

Samuel so badly wanted to get in the water!

The boys and I

 I love how we are all looking in different directions

I love him SO much!

We barely touched the property and we have decided to go back someday soon. I highly recommend it. I live in a very historical area of the country and I have never appreciated it the way I should. I never realized that places like this were so close to where I lived. It made me appreciate where I live a little bit more.

We ended our day with dinner in Richmond and then headed home. We drove through a bad storm on the way home and I got really anxious but thankfully we got through the storm.

I am so grateful that Shannon made my day so special and so glad that I was able to have a fun, stressed-free day.