For those of you who did not know, I planned a surprise weekend away for Jamie's birthday.  We went down to Raleigh, NC to see Jewel and Brad Paisley in concert.  I packed everything and put it in the Vibe on Friday without his knowing and I had arranged through his boss for him to have off on Monday, the 21st.

First of all, the concert was fabulous!

Saturday he got up fairly early, before I had finished picking up last minute items to put them in the car. I had to sneak the last items out and tried to get him out the door to go to breakfast, but he refused to get ready! I finally had to get his mom involved and she asked him to stop by. I finally got him out the door by 9 am and had wanted to be on the road by then. We got breakfast and finished by 10. He asked me what we were going to do then and I told him I had no idea. What did he want to do. We discussed some options and I put Beth on and told him I just had one more quick stop. He saw we were traveling about 350 miles and told me he was not going on a 400 mile trip that day. I told him that he was and to just relax. He said that we had no clothes, Hazel had no food and that no one knew. Come to find out later he thought that I had something else planned, and that I had just put in some weird address knowing that I would have to take a different exit to get where ever we were going. He did not believe we would be going on a 400 mile trip. I told him to just relax. I explained that the clothes were in the back, my mom had food for Hazel and had hid it so he wouldn't know. My mom and his mom knew and everything was set.

The 5 1/2 hour drive took 7 hours because we hit terrible traffic all through Virginia. I had expected to get there around 2 and explore Raleigh before the concert. We got there at 5, grabbed dinner and then left for the concert. Jamie guessed half way down that we were going to a concert because I had put Brad Paisley's CD on and he swore that I never listen to Brad Paisley (not true) so he found it odd. I told him that we were going to the concert, but he had no idea where.

Julianne Hough (Huff) was great. She is a new singer and had so much energy and was clearly having fun up there. Chuck Wicks performed next. I like his songs, but he seemed to not be having fun on the stage, so I was bored with him. Jewel was excellent, though she didn't perform as long as I had expected. It was so awesome to get to see her in concert though! Brad Paisley's part was phenominal. A really, really great show he put together. We had excellent, comfortable seats and although it was supposed to be HOT, it was absolutely perfect when we got there. A slight breeze and very mild temperatures. It was so nice.

On Saturday I had messed up and told Jamie that I only brought two pairs of socks and had forgotten another pair for him. He asked me how many days I had planned on staying and I again, tried to cover up and told him that he was right and I wasn't sure why I thought he needed another pair. He asked me if we had off on Monday and he just didn't know and I told him no.

I had planned on staying in Raleigh Sunday too, but seeing how long it took us to drive down there, I did an early check out. It seemed to work out well because then Jamie really thought that we were leaving to head home. I told him then that we had off on Monday and we could do whatever he wanted for the next two days. He was very excited and was shocked that his boss was able to keep this secret. LOL.

We headed off to go to a wildlife sanctuary in Southern Virginia and when we got there it was closed without explanation. So we decided to go to Virginia Beach. We spent all day Sunday driving and only made it to Southern Virginia and we did nothing! I still don't understand how it took all day to drive 100 miles. We were going to spend the night in Virginia Beach, but a stop at the welcome center revealed that there were only about two things we wanted to do and they were closed for the night. We found a museum we wanted to visit in Newport News, VA, so after staying in Virginia Beach for about 30 minutes we left and continued driving. We checked into a hotel room, and I found that there was lots I wanted to do in Newport News, but of course we still had about 250 miles left to drive the next day and everything was closed for the night. We had dinner and went back to the hotel where we both collapsed because the damn air conditioner at the room the night before was so loud that it kept us both up half the night and we were both tired.

We got up early Monday and went to the Virginia Living Museum which was so much fun that we spent three hours there! We left around 1:00 pm and drove home. There were more things we wanted to do, but just didn't have the time. We still had a 3.5 hour drive left. We hit more traffic and got home around 5 pm Monday night.  I can't believe (and neither can Jamie) that I was able to keep my mouth shut, make all the plans, pack, make arrangements for Hazel, and get us both off on Monday without him knowing!

Now, the original birthday surprise that I had planned that he knows about happens this weekend.  Wow, I can't believe how quickly that got here!