Birthday Surprise: Honeymoon Hotel & The Civil Wars

If any of you remember, I happened to turn 30 earlier this month.  It wasn't emotional or anything and I survived turning an age that I remember my mother turning and thinking to myself at the time "Oh my gosh, she's SO old.  Almost, like, Grandma-old." 

Remember how I told you how I return gifts all.the.time so my husband had preemptively planned a birthday surprise for me that I wouldn't be able to return? 

Yeh.  He did an AH-MAZING job! 

He brought me to Minneapolis and sent me off to do whatever I wanted all day while he was at a workshop.  It was really fun to window shop for a couple of hours then spend the afternoon huddled in a small coffee shop reading blogs, studies and articles.  He thought I'd love several uninterrupted hours to get lost in the latest parenting and childbirth trends.  He was right!

Later that afternoon we went out to eat and he brought me to our hotel.  The hotel we stayed at happened to be the very same hotel we stayed at on our honeymoon the night we got married!  How romantical, right?  He scored a million points for that one!

He still refused to tell me what my surprise was (as if all that wasn't enough already).  As we drove downtown later that night, getting ready to go to my big surprise that anticipation was killing me!  I could hardly wait and was so nervous I was shaking!  I was SO excited to see what he had planned.  He let me take a couple of guesses. Cirque du Soleil?  Rock N' Roll Dueling Pianos?  But I was wrong on all those guesses.

As we approached our destination, lights and people EVERYWHERE, he made me close my eyes.  Not that I would've noticed.  I was too excited and giddy. 

We parked our car and walked amongst tons of Tyler Perry fans (Tyler Perry was in town - should've guessed that one, too).  As we approached my surprise, he made me look down and he guided me along.  Suddenly we stopped and he told me to look up and this is what I saw:

The Civil Wars in concert!

My husband had not only pulled off the impossible (surprising me) but the incredible, by taking me to The Civil Wars!!!  The Civil Wars are quite possibly our favorite band right now and have restored my hope that there are some out there with pure talent in a music industry.  A music industry that perpetuates perfect pitch and beats, all brought forth by a computer.  The Civil Wars are raw, harmonious folk vocals, accompanied by a guitar and the occasional jaunt on the keys.   Pause: if you aren't familiar with The Civil Wars listen to this song.

I got tears in my eyes as I held his hand (obviously, I don't get out much) and we went up at got our tickets scanned.  I just kept smiling while we got our drinks and were seated in the beautiful State Theatre. 

The beautiful State Theatre, waiting for The Civil Wars to start!

As we sat and waited for the concert to begin, Dallas explained it all to me; how he had to delete any messages he wrote to people while coordinating this whole thing, how he changed his passwords so I wouldn't know anything and even how he used a new credit card to pay for our room at the hotel.

As he talked I remembered that The Civil Wars tour had sold out and wondered how he got not only tickets, but tickets about 10 rows up in the center aisle.  He told me it really was a miracle.  :-)

Milo Greene opened for them, and they were quite impressive.  I look forward to hearing more of them.  The Civil Wars stole the show with every single song.  Their performance of "Barton Hollow" left the whole theatre in uproarious applause.

In the end, my husband succeeded at surprising me, getting me a gift I would love and there's no way I'd want to return it!  It's a gift I'll never forget!  Thank you, Dallas!

At The Civil Wars concert.  Ignore the flash blasting our eyes in the dim theatre.