Surprise #1: Backyard Camping

I am planning a surprise for Aaron tonight, and of course, he couldn't let it go unchallenged. Lucky for me, he planned a wonderful surprise!! I worked for a while last night and we knew I'd get out at a decent time (around 10pm instead of midnight or later). Instead, I got done at 8:30, which messed up his timing a little, but he still pulled everything off wonderfully. I got home and was immediately instructed to change into some comfy clothes. I knew something great was up, because the dog was very excited and kept running towards the back door. Aaron led me outside and I saw our brand new tent set up and a fire ready to go in our fire-pit.

(View of our tent this morning, with our house in the background.)

We spent our evening making s'mores, grilling hot dogs, and enjoying the fire. Steve the dog spent the evening outside with us and was very well behaved. We repeatedly refilled his Kong with special liver paste that's in a can like EasyCheese, as well as marshmallows. He was amazingly well behaved, which makes me beam like a proud parent :-D

(Steve attempting to get melted cheese out of his Kong a few days ago)

We slept in our tent, with the dog, all night long. It was great and, once again beaming, I was thoroughly impressed with the dog!! There's a separate little room in our tent (which can be seen on the right hand side of the tent in the picture) just for pets. We didn't close Steve up in there, but we did put his big pillow in there and he slept there all night. All we had to do was say "Bed!!" if he got up and started wandering around and he immediately went back to bed.

Enough about our wonderful dog though...This morning I woke up to Aaron making me a campsite breakfast of pancakes and smokies wrapped in bacon, along with an apple juice. The best part was, he had all of the food outside with us all night. He made it like we were really camping!! I am thankful that he let me go inside to use the bathroom though, being that our neighbors are in very close proximity ;-)

Even though I have a great surprise planned for tonight, it's going to be tough to beat a night/morning as wonderful as this one!!