20.

I have been ANXIOUSLY anticipating my birthday as the long summer weeks have gone by with little Giuseppe time and few and far between outings from this darn apartment complex. Our car is broken, so we couldn't drive out to the coast like I wanted. :( BUT I got a day with my husband and a trip out of the apartment, so I was definitely pleased.

We Ubered (via Jason from North Dakota) over to a shopping cluster a few miles away and bought movie tickets. We had some time to kill before our movie, so we walked over to Cabela's to look at the fish. After spending a lot of time giving each fish a personality and back story based on their facial expressions, we bought some candy and headed over to the movie theater for "Lights Out". I specifically wanted to watch a horror movie in a movie theater, so this was perfect. I used to be super chill during scary movies, but I'm actually kind of a baby now and I was pretty scared by the time the trailers ended. The movie itself was pretty good. Giuseppe didn't really like it, but I screamed and curled into a ball and squeezed the life out of my husband. So fun!

Next on the agenda was Tucano's, but we hadn't reached starvation yet, so we killed time in Bed Bath & Beyond on a camping couch while G told me mission stories. Random, right?

Then at Tucano's we of course gorged on everything in sight until we were about to puke. Our meat servers were funny, one in particular came over at the end of the meal and told us that he'd gotten seven compliments in the past week and that people loved him. That was kind of strange. We ended the meal splitting the mango cake which is HEAVENLY. We ordered it last year when we went to Tucano's around my birthday and I haven't gotten it out of my mind. It was even better than I remembered.

After the meal, I was too full to want to do anything but lay on the cement ramp behind the theater and watch the clouds. Giuseppe wasn't really into this until he spotted the large swan I pointed out. We mourned loudly as it was decapitated.

When I gathered enough stamina to stand up, we were picked up by an Uber (via Jason from Mississippi) and taken back to our apartment complex where we went swimming! I used to not like swimming, but lately the heat (and lack of much else to do) has made it one of my favorite pass-times.

Luckily we had the pool to ourselves, so we had the freedom to be as rambunctious as we wanted. (Although there were some ladies lounging outside who probably though we were freaks). Giuseppe taught me how to do flips under the water, and then he would recreate my lame worm-like attempts for me. The funniest part (in my opinion) was when we were playing Marco Polo and I decided to get out of the water while Giuseppe searched for me and see how long it would take for him to realize I wasn't actually in there. Unfortunately Giuseppe heard me before I even got out of the pool and was able to witness what he later called "a pathetic looking topple" back into the pool as I slipped and fell into the ONE FOOT DEEP kiddie area. Ouch!

It seems that every time we swim together, we end up making up some dramatic story line and acting it out. This time it was a horror rendition of various movies we've seen. Haha so fun!

We finished the day with a phone call with our moms and then crashed, still in a food coma.

It was a fantastic birthday and I'm so grateful for my sweet husband who makes life fun and exciting. I wouldn't want to spend the day with anyone else!

Also, I must say that my birthday was waaaaay better than his lame 24th birthday in April. It landed on the last day of school and he spent the day (and all the days leading up to it) drowning in final projects. We had about two hours left at the end of the day to eat cake and open presents and then I watched him pass out from exhaustion. :(

Updates: summer lovin'

We are spending our summer in Greenville, South Carolina while Giuseppe works as a sales representative for Vivint. I did it too, for about a month, and… quit. I could go on and on about WHY I quit, but for heaven's sake, Giuseppe might read this and we need to keep his spirits up!

Things are pretty chill for me now. I work as the office assistant but I also spend my days studying French! Besides just reading from my textbooks (which gets OLD after a while), I am reading general conference addresses in French while learning vocabulary and trying to follow grammar patterns. It’s been a thrilling summer. ;)

Haha no but really, I love being here in this beautiful city. And the best part is, I get to spend lots of time (well, sort of) with my babe! I am so proud of his hard work and motivation. He’s the greatest.

The apartment we are in is fantastic! There’s a cute little “cupboard under the stairs” that we say Harry lives in. Whenever we hear fishy noises, or if the milk was left out, or whenever we are out of food, we always blame it on Harry. He’s always under his invisibility cloak, duh. That’s why we can’t see him. But we know he’s there. Doing tomfoolery. That ungrateful prat!

There are a billion and ten bugs here, something that we are not necessarily a fan of. BUT we do like the gutsy little frogs that sit outside our apartment door trying to get inside.

Also, everyone and their mom has a dog. Our apartment complex is dotted with dog parks, and there are ALWAYS people outside walking their dogs. The weird thing is, they are actually very classy dogs. They rarely bark, and I don’t think I’ve seen a single dog dropping here. They’re not defensive either. If I get too close to the apartment door, they don’t even care. I swear sometimes they even smile at me. Much unlike the mangy mutts who tried to kill me in the neighborhoods I used to knock. Yes, I definitely belong here instead of there.

Sundays are DEFINITELY the best day of the week. We have the greatest little ward. The people are awesome. Whenever our car won’t start after church (which is often), a small crowd is there to help us out. And we’ve been invited over for dinner several times too! We also have a new calling! Nursery leaders. I will definitely do a post on our experiences.

So that's us!