Birthday Getaway to Raleigh, North Carolina!

FRIENDS!!!

Hi!!

How are you???

This post was supposed to be published on MONDAY. 

And it's WEDNESDAY.  WHOOPS. HA!

I have to be honest with you...the past couple of days I have felt pretty off. 

Aaron and I had the best weekend and then as we were heading home from getting our kiddos from my brother's house...we learned of the Kobe Bryant tragedy. I am sure I share the same feelings as all of you which is of DEEP sadness for his wife and 3 other daughters...and for the other victims in the crash. 

So much DEVASTATION in just a split second.

If you have personally experienced death, then you know grief can slam you when you least expect it...which is kind of what happened to me. Thinking about the immense loss of Kobe's life and his precious daughter's life and all that it means for his family triggered me to go back to the events surrounding my father's death...planning his funeral, the actual funeral service and his burial. And just how much I MISS my dad.

I was definitely NOT prepared to be so personally triggered by the Kobe Bryant tragedy...but I was. And that's why they say grief comes in waves and a lot of the time..when you least expect it.

SO. Here I am :) I am feeling much better...thanks to prayer and the Hope I can only find in God's love and His promises. Also my husband is amazing and I was extremely encouraged by one of most special friends...and that has just been so good for my heart.

Anyway..I think it's important to be open about grief and hard stuff. It wouldn't be honest of me to just pop back in here and talk all about my amazing weekend without also sharing that amidst a lot of goodness...a layer of hurt kind of always exists. 

To paraphrase Daniel Tiger, "It's okay to feel two feelings at the same time." 

Okay!!

Now...let's talk about the super fun weekend Aaron and I just had!!

So- Aaron's birthday is actually TODAY!

But he is at a conference today through Sunday- so we celebrated this past weekend.

Last year, I surprised Aaron with an overnight getaway to Pinehurst, NC to celebrate turning the big 4-0. You can read about it HERE!

Aaron is totally a "quality time" person and gifts are NOT his love language...so I knew the best way to celebrate his birthday this year would be another little getaway!!

My brother and sister-in-law (I know you are reading this Erica!!) are absolutely AMAZING and graciously agreed to watch our crazy crew while we snuck away. To utilize our time to the MAX- we stayed in Raleigh- which is where my brother lives. 

Since moving to Greenville, we have gone up to Raleigh quite a bit- but we haven't ever really done anything IN the city because we just always go hang out with my brother and his family.

So I was super excited for Aaron and I to explore Raleigh and just have tons of fun together!!

This is us after dropping off our kiddos. 

Not gonna lie- we were pretty pumped. HA!

(and so we are kids- they LOVE LOVE LOVE staying at my brother's house!)

The first place I took Aaron was Drive Shack!! It's almost identical to Top Golf.

Aaron is an avid golfer and I knew he would love love this activity!!

We "golfed" for about 2 hours and had a BLAST. There are all sorts of games you can play and of course you can just hit balls and see how far they go and the speed at which you hit them and all that good stuff. I am happy to report- I actually HIT multiple balls and Aaron was quite proud of me. HA!

Our waiter was so sweet and brought Aaron out a surprise dessert for his birthday!!

After we finished up at the Drive Shack, we headed to downtown Raleigh to have lunch at The Pit. This is an awesome BBQ restaurant that my brother recommended to me!

We had a delicious lunch...beef brisket for him and pulled chicken for me and left with happy, full tummies :)

After lunch, we headed over to the North Hills area of Raleigh where there is a bunch of shops and it's super cute and all outdoor! 

Of course we ended up at Lily Pulitzer...and I tell you- there is not a more cheerful store than Lily!!! 

There was a cute little grassy area with several benches and we sat down for a bit...just because we could. HA!

After a fun afternoon of window shopping (I did make sure to point out several things I liked at the Kendra Scott store- HA!), we got checked into our hotel and then headed to Saturday evening Mass at the Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral. The cathedral was recently built and we have not yet been there to see it! It is absolutely STUNNING and Mass was wonderful!!

And as luck would have it- we saw someone who knew us from our home parish in Greenville. Of course, I asked him to take a picture of us! HA!

After church...things got a little interesting :)

I had made reservations for us to have dinner at this great restaurant my brother recommended. Or so I thought I did. I got the confirmation email for the reservation and realized I had made it for SUNDAY night!!!

Oh my goodness. I was so irritated. I immediately asked my brother, who is a total foodie, to recommend me some other restaurants in Raleigh. And of course, they were all BOOKED. Not a single restaurant had a reservation. 

So- we decided to try and see if we could get in to a couple of places...with just some luck. 

Um. Yeah. NO. First place- 1 1/2 hour wait. So we walked to another place. 2-3 hour wait. HA!

So we just took our chances and drove over to the original restaurant I made the WRONG reservations for- and guess what?!? As soon as we walked in- 2 seats opened up at the bar!!

You can bet we snatched them up and promptly ordered our food. HA!

The Oak- Kitchen and Bourbon Bar was amazing. The service was great and the food was amazing. We got fried brussel sprouts for an appetizer and OMG. I was obsessed. They were SO good!

After we finished up with dinner, we headed back to our hotel. 

Friends. I felt like the BIGGEST freak- but I had Aaron take a picture of me so you could see what dress I ended up picking! I got this dress from Amazon- but I will tell you- I majorly sized up. I am normally a small/medium. Both the small and medium fit me- but they were TIGHT. Like totally NOT my style. So I got a large..and while it was a smidge bigger than I would have liked...I was the most comfortable in it!

Can't beat the price tag..it was $22.99!

As we were walking back to our hotel (we stayed at the Hampton Inn in downtown Raleigh), we walked by a bar that had live music. I was super intrigued because the music sounded so great...so we hopped in to check it out!

Well...it ended up being a dualing piano bar and it was SO.MUCH.FUN.

The musicians were insane and the energy of the bar was on fire!

We had a BLAST!

Sunday morning we slept until 7:30 am. Felt like it was almost 11 am when we woke up! HA!

We enjoyed our coffee in bed and then made our way downstairs for breakfast!!

After breakfast, we checked out of our hotel and headed to Trader Joe's for a quick shopping trip before we needed to be at my brother's house to get the kids.

I LOVE TRADER JOES!! :)

While we were leisurely perusing the aisles of Trader Joe's, my amazing sister-in-law was wrangling the kids at church to get a picture. HA! It's Catholic School Week and the kids wore their uniforms to Mass! 

We got to my brother's house around noon, had a quick lunch and I made everyone take a picture. They were THRILLED. not. HA!

The kids had as great of a time as Aaron and I did...if not even MORE fun!

I think this picture says it all!!

So VERY thankful for a special weekend to celebrate my number one guy.
It was incredibly life giving to have some one on one time with each other and we just felt SO grateful to have had such a fun time with each other!!!

And one last thing before I sign off for the day....
I absolutely LOVED reading all of your comments on my 5 Year Blogging Anniversary Post!!
They truly made me SO happy!!!

I randomly picked a winner for the giveaway and that person is....

Lindsay from Minneapolis, Minnesota!!
Lindsay! I emailed you!! 

Hope you have the BEST day!

Linking up with Stefanie, Keri, Mauri, Sarah, and Lindsay today!