And a Great Weekend it was…

Friday evening started out with a private dinner at the zoo.  The room as decorated beautifully and the food was so delicious (it was made by the same person who is catering the appetizers for our wedding)!  However I think that I was faced by one of the scariest moments of my entire life.  My brother, Knox and I decided to take a private tour of the Lied Jungle.  It was quiet, dark and eerie.   Most animals were put away, and the silence was overwhelming as we ventured through the depths of the jungle in near dark.  All was well until we decided to tour the bottom level of the jungle…in the dark.  For those of you who have been through the bottom half of the Lied Jungle, there are many dark long tunnels.  This is fine during the day, when a certain nocturnal animal stays away, however in the night, they were filled with BATS!  I did fine through the first tunnel as we only saw one large bat fly by us, however when we got to the other side, there were HUNDREDS of un-caged, ENORMOUS bats!  I of course started screaming and panicking as they swarmed around us, zipping around at lightening speeds, while Knox and Pete remained fairly calm.  That too only lasted momentarily as Knox looked ahead to the next long dark tunnel to see it LINED with large bats hanging upside down.  So there we were, frozen still, with the bats swarming around and the dark tunnel in front of us FILLED with these creepy creatures.  I stood there screaming, and decided I was ready to head for the emergency exit (I’m sure at that point lights would have gone on and some siren would have sounded when I opened the door, but I didn't care), when yet  ANOTHER bat whizzed by my head and I nearly passed out. 

Knox and Pete both refused to proceed, so it was time to turn around and backtrack.  But again, we were frozen between the two tunnels with swarming bats all around us.  I couldn’t even open my eyes!  Knox lead the way back through the first tunnel as I held his hand and with my other hand I had my brother.  I had to close my eyes the entire way back as the bats where swirling all around us in the tunnel.  When we got back to safety, I honestly thought I was going to throw up or pass out…I wasn’t sure which one, but needless to say, I think I was more scared than I have ever been in my life!

After calming down back upstairs, we enjoyed our dinner, a brief presentation that was rather amusing on the history of our church, and then off Knox and I went to change into our matching Luau gear and headed to Leigh and Grant’s for the big shin dig.  When we arrived the party was in full force, and we stuck around until the end, enjoying the time with friends.

Saturday we picked out our wedding invitations and then headed home to stay out of the storm.  We completed a few projects around the house and watched nothing less than FOOTBALL!  We both love college football, so we had a really great evening.

Yesterday we headed out to complete some Christmas shopping (we’re on a roll J) after lunching at and grocery shopping at one of our favorite places, Whole Foods.  We really enjoy going there and scouring the aisles for unique items to try.  Sometimes Knox’s picks are a little “too unique” for my enjoyment, but we find many, many goods that we both like.  We plan to make lamb burgers this week which we are both just stoked about!  We also put up a few Christmas lights outside, which makes me so happy.  I love Christmas!  Knox did most of the work, but I stood there, bundled up in support, even when he was dumping snow on me from the roof!

This week is going to be VERY busy for us.  We have a few wedding things to work on and then our goal is to wrap up Christmas shopping.

We’ll see how far we get!  J

Cheers to a great week!

Anastasia