Birthday weekend surprise!

Charles outdid himself for sure this year!  He arranged for Gamee and Grampee to keep the kids for 2 nights so that we could do a weekend away.  I finally made him tell me where we were going so that I knew what to pack.  When he first said Waco, I was thinking that was an odd place since we are in Waco a lot.  Then I found out all the cool things we were gonna do!  First, we ate dinner at Diamondback's (Texas Bistro) Friday night which is a few doors down from where our first date was at a restuarant named Gratzi's (Gratzi's is no longer there).  It was an AMAZING dinner to say the least and it was so nice to have nothing to rush around for.  Saturday morning we slept in before doing some shopping and winery tours.  We fell in love at a place called Waco Wineries where we did a tasting and then we were able to just walk through the vineyards.  There is nothing like nature to take away stress.  Then we made a quick jaunt back to Chuy's to eat before the BIG finale.  I was SO EXCITED to finally get to see the Baylor Bears, Joy and Lady, up close and personal.  Of course we cannot pet them (they are not fond of that)...but I got to see their enclosed habitat, feed Joy a treat of peanut butter on a spatula, make them do tricks like "up" (they spread arms/legs and stand tall), "smile" (they open mouth real big), and of course "Sic 'Em"!  We were amazed at how well cared for they are.  It has always been a dream of mine to be close to the bears, so this was a check off my bucket list for sure!  Sunday morning we had breakfast at the hotel before walking the lake and geocaching on our way out of town.  Talk about a GREAT weekend!  Thanks to my sweet hubby Charles and especially Gamee/Grampee for spoiling the kids (2 weekends in a row this time) while we got away.  I feel so loved and ready to turn 36 years old.  Ha!