Happy 29th Birthday Brian!

On Sunday, my boyfriend Brian celebrated his 29th birthday! In honor of his birthday, I'd been planning a SURPRISE (shhhh!!!) weekend getaway for the two of us. Originally I wanted to go to Ocean City, because Brian had never been there before and I thought it would be fun. Finding a place to stay proved to be more difficult (not to mention expensive!!) than I thought it would be... I totally wasn't thinking about the fact that Brian's birthday falls smack dab in the middle of the busiest season... special thanks to Serita McGuire, for having a SUMMER baby!! LoL So I considered a trip to Pittsburgh instead, since our first trip together had been there, plus Brian has been talking about wanting to go see a baseball game at PNC Park. Well, as my luck would have it, the Pirates weren't in town that weekend! So, back to the drawing board! I researched places to stay but I couldn't find anything decent or really anything at all that was under about $500 which is CRAZY!! Fortunately, my friend and fellow-midnight shifter Brian and his wife Michelle were going to be on vacation in Ocean City that week and offered to let us stay with them for FREE!! Once I'd found a place for us to stay, I got started on the rest of the planning... there was so much I wanted to see/do and so little time to do it in!

I knew I wanted to take Brian to eat crabs and to try snow crab legs for the first time; I knew I wanted to go to the beach so Brian could go for his first ever dip in the Atlantic Ocean; I knew I wanted to walk on The Boardwalk; I knew I wanted to go do something fun (play mini-golf, ride go-karts, go to the water park, etc); there were several Ocean City must-haves that I wanted him to experience (Thrasher's fries, Dough Roller pizza, Fisher's popcorn, Dumser's ice cream, etc)

In preparation for our weekend excursion, I went out and bought myself a new bathing suit and some stylish new swim trunks for the birthday boy. I also bought some new beach towels, some sunscreen, and a bag to carry our beach stuff in. I asked Brian if he could come home from work earlier than he normally would've, so we could get started on our journey. I was hoping to be packed and ready to go by the time he got home, but I was working on Jomi-time (a.k.a. LATE!!!) so of course that didn't happen!

My lips were sealed... that was until I accidentally ruined my own surprise! :( Fortunately, my little slip of the tongue didn't happen until Friday (the day we were leaving for the trip) so it wasn't a HUGE deal, but I was still disappointed about letting the cat out of the bag!

After a little nappy nap, we got started on our trip... a little later than originally planned, but better late than never! We arrived in Ocean City around 8:45pm, just in time to go to my favorite buffet... Castle in the Sand. It's a clean, affordable restaurant that is tucked away in the basement of an oceanfront hotel. They have a wide assortment of yummy food like fried chicken, prime rib, corn fritters, salad, fresh fruit, steamed shrimp and my personal favorite, Alaskan King Crab legs! Brian is still getting used to my love of seafood and he'd never tried the crab legs before so I was excited for his first time! Check this out...


After dinner, we stopped at the condo to drop off our stuff and say hello to Brian & Michelle. Then we headed to The Boardwalk to check out the sights. We stopped at one of the food stands and ordered some Deep Fried Oreos... they were so rich, I could only eat about one and a half! Brian and I walked along the beach for awhile and dipped our toes in the ice cold water! We had one more stop to make before we headed for the car... we stopped at Kohr Bros. ice cream to get Brian a creamy cone of his favorite flavor... peanut butter & chocolate! We got back to the condo around 2am and got ready for bed, so we'd be rested for the next day!

The Boardwalk in Ocean City! :)

deep fried oreos!!

take a bite out of some ooey gooey goodness!!

On Saturday morning, Brian & I were hungry for some breakfast but there were so many places to choose from... there's Bayside Skillet, Layton's Family Breakfast, English's Buffet, General's Kitchen, Happy Jack's Pancake House... and those are just SOME of the MANY options! We finally decided on Castle in the Sand (again) and we grubbed on some french toast, pancakes, hashbrowns, grilled ham, bacon and sausage. After breakfast, we headed back to the condo to change and get ready for the beach! We walked out onto the warm sand and looked for the perfect spot to spread out our blanket and catch some rays! It wasn't long until we were ready for a dip! We had so much fun crashing the waves and being tossed around in the surf! After about an hour in the water, we took a little break. We slathered on some sunscreen and relaxed on the blanket for awhile before we spotted a Scopes photographer and grabbed him for a few memorable snapshots. We went back into the water to rinse off the sand we had acquired during our photo shoot and we didn't come out for over 2 hours! Despite the fact that we got a little too much sun, we had so much fun! We packed up the blanket and headed back to the condo to take showers and get ready for the evening. That's where things started to unravel...

Brian trying to decide where to put our stuff :)

this one is Brian's favorite...


I can't decide if I like this one better...


... or this one??

As only my luck would have it, I wound up with some freak injury to my legs. The swim shorts I bought from Walmart caused some large open sores on the insides and tops of my legs, which made it excruciatingly painful to walk even a few steps. We stopped at Rite Aid to pick up some first-aid supplies do that I could try to Paramedic myself... it didn't work as well as I'd hoped! I wanted to take Brian to Seacrets for dinner, but there was some band playing and they were charging a $7 cover charge for each person so we changed our minds. Then we decided on Big Peckers for some fried chicken, but the wait was insane and since we were both tired and hungry, the search continued. We finally settled on some Pizza Tugo's, which was pretty yummy even if it wasn't what we had planned on.

We headed back to The Boardwalk for Round Two... first, we stopped at one of the souvenier shops so I could buy a few supplies for my two hermit crabs, Rickie and Charlie. (last summer, on a whim, I bought two hermit crabs and much to everyone's disbelief, they're STILL alive!) $60 and FOUR more hermit crabs later, Brian & I headed to Thrasher's for some famous fries! By the time we got back to the condo, I could barely move... my legs hurt SO bad, I cannot even explain it! I've got a pretty high pain tolerance but this was so painful that I even shed a few tears! I was also disappointed because I had really wanted to do something else fun with Brian, but my stupid legs were preventing me from it! Thankfully, Brian was a good sport about it...

Thrasher's are not your average french fry!!

On Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early to pack up and start heading home. We stopped at Candy Kitchen and picked up some taffy as souvenirs for my family and some fudge as a souvenir for ourselves! Then we stopped at Fisher's Popcorn to get some fresh caramel popcorn (w/peanuts!) for my Mom. After a quick stop at home to shower and change clothes, we joined the rest of the family at my mom's for a BBQ to celebrate Brian & my older sister Kelly's birthdays (hers was 2 days later). Mom made NY strip steaks on the grill, shrimp kabobs, stuffed tomatoes, roasted potatoes and lots more! My Grandma made a german chocolate cake for Brian and my mom bought a chocolate cheesecake for Kelly... she forgot to get candles so she had to improvise! Here are Brian & Kelly making a wish on their giant matchsticks...



Candy Kitchen = mmm!!! :)

Fisher's popcorn for Mom... caramel WITH peanuts!

Happy Birthday, Sweetie... I hope you enjoyed your birthday and that all your wishes come true! I love you, Brian McGuire!!