name day shenanigans

Ember's birthday fell on a Monday this year, and since it was a weekday, we decided to celebrate on Saturday. We invited a few friends over and went to the Grove Park Inn to see the gingerbread house exhibit, per her request. She really loves her some gingerbread houses.

So it's freezing in Asheville (which was wonderful, because I'm really getting tired of these 70 degree Winter days and 25 degree mornings. Seriously, snow or do not. There is no try). We all get in for free, somehow. I was fairly sure there was a fee to see them this year if you weren't a guest, and was fully prepared to begrudgingly pay the $12 or whatever to get in. But I find that if you look like you know what you're doing, people don't tend to ask questions. So we poke around the joint for a while, take a few pictures and check out some of the mind-blowing edible displays. 

They were cute this year, especially the Alice in Wonderland one, but I'm pretty sure we missed a few of them or something because there didn't seem to be near as many as there were before. I was greatly disturbed and surprised at the fact that no one had constructed anything Tangled related. Not even in the children's division. With that grievous oversight in mind, I have decided that I am going to make one. From scratch. With fortified gingerbread tower walls, adorable candied window shrubbery and long, delicious taffy hair. IN YO FACE, 3rd graders.

After that we decided to see what was going on at the Asheville mall, which was a horrible decision, really. It was hot and crowded and the layout sucked. We couldn't even find most of the stores. After aimlessly wandering for a while and following people around to find this elusive other half of the mall, we got bored and left.

When it came time for food, and everyone is doing thier "I don't care, what do you want" spiels, I see my chance. I casually lean over and say, "It's your birthday, you get whatever you want. Sushi sounds fantastic. But you get what you want. No pressure, babe." And I'm looking at her like O,O. No one can resist the puppy dog eyes. Happy birthday to me.

Forgot who brought it up, but after that we made a Krispy Kreme run. Em got a red velvet cake, I got a hot-and-now. And I'm drooling on the keyboard as I type this because now I want another doughnut.

We all headed back to the house for a bit to feed the animals, and ended up staying for about two hours. I remember Dee and Em are trying to get me to dance, I'm all 'lol no,' Mari pulls me up and then the wrestling started. All I could hear playing in my head was 'In this corner, weighing in at one hundred and nineteen pounds, lightweight undefeated champion of the living room... ' Yeah, don't ask.


And today is the start of many days off work, and my plans are all set. Video games and sleep. And by that I mean cleaning the house and writing more fic.