Mr. Awesome's Birthday!

My handsome guy turned 26!  We got to celebrate it with more family than normal this year.  My parents were here on his birthday so we were grateful to have more people here to celebrate this awesome guys day! 

We got up and got ready to go on our day date.  Before we left he opened his gift from me and the girls.  

Right before Christmas last year I started a quilt for Casey.  Due to being so dang busy with work this year I wasnt able to get it finished until now.  I found a really nice lady who does long arm quilting and had her finish the top.  It turned out great.  Poor guy got jipped though having to wait so long.

Last year when my parents came I showed my dad Casey's blanket chest.  He made it in High School.  Before he could get time to go and finish it someone stole his original lid, so we have had a wooden box floating around our house that just became a throw all.  I really wanted to have a lid made for it so we could actually put it out and use it for the original purpose.  

I asked my dad if he could possibly do that; because he has awesome woodworking skills and I know he'd been looking for an excuse to use his tools again. ;)

Well, he did it!  and it turned out great!  We now have it in our living room where it can actually be used as a blanket chest! 

We left for breakfast and were told to take our time on our date, so we did.   First stop was Panara Bread for breakfast.  We actually got to sit down and talk for a while.  After breakfast we discussed what we should go do next.  We ended up walking around Barnes and Noble for a while because we were going to head to a movie next door.  There ended up not being anything really worth watching, so we went on a quick run to target to go buy a new shirt for Casey and some pants for me.  We were intending on going to the beach, thus the new clothes, but the weather had other ideas.  
Anyways we ended up going to the Tacoma Museum of glass.  Its in Downtown Tacoma and right near the water.  This was the art installation right outside of the museum.  

Ever since our high school days we have really enjoyed going to art museums together and just spending time walking around.  So as odd as it may seem to some to go to a museum for the day, it was perfect for us.  

There were some really neat things!

.....And some really odd things.

They had all of this information about how certain things are made, and let me tell you glass art is no walk in the park.  These people have way more patience than I do.  There was a few things there that said that the artists had tried to replicate more than a few times, but its never worked again. 

The artist that made this was actually there.  He was doing a demonstration in another part of the museum.  So we got to see him in action, and it was pretty cool.

There is this odd dome shaped part to the building, and that is where they do the demonstrations.  They have these kilns in there, and a ton of tools.  One of the torches they used went up to 5,000 degrees.  

Looking up the dome.

After our look around inside we went outside and looked around.  I am glad we did!!  That was one of the best parts. 

You can take some stairs to on top of the building and see a gorgeous view.

Little did we know they had a bridge up there that had tons and tons of really neat works of art as a permanent structure.   

There was literally a wall of art that went a good length of the bridge.  

Some of the art in here was more amazing than the stuff inside, and this was free! 

Also on the bridge was these two pillars.  They were also art installations.  These are HUGE blocks of glass. The weight on this thing must be incredible!

View of the traffic on either side of the bridge.  Later on we drove on this road up to dinner, and we got to see it all from below.

After we were done on the bridge we walked back to the car and headed to lunch.  We were going to go to the Melting Pot, but it wasn't yet.  Good thing too, because we ended up going to another place that had an incredible view!

Casey decided on The Ram.  We always go to the one in Lakewood, but I knew there was one in Tacoma so we drove out there.  It was right along the water.  The boats above were really close to where we ended up.

When we got inside they gave us an option of inside or outside, and I didn't even give Casey a chance to say anything.  I wanted outside!  It was gorgeous out there and perfect weather!  I'm so glad that we did too!  

We had an incredible day together and ended it with an awesome lunch and a really tasty virgin pina colada, My fav!!  I'm glad that I get to celebrate such a great day!  I don't know what Id do without my Mr. Awesome!