Written October 2019
While we didn’t have any trips or weekend getaways planned for July, I did have a little something up my sleeve to celebrate Norina’s birthday. I had a couple surprises in store for her, neither of which she was able to guess as to what they were!
7/16 – WICKED
So about a month beforehand, Norina had mentioned to me that the musical Wicked was playing downtown, and that she wanted to see it. I didn’t really react much to it, and kind of just brushed it aside…so she didn’t bother talking to me about it after that. But with that, she planted the idea in my head for me to take her to go see it. And as luck would have it, they would be performing during her birthday week. I already had plans for her birthday, so I knew we couldn’t see it then…so then was between doing it the night before on Tuesday or the following Saturday. None of her siblings were able to make it the following Saturday night, so I decided to just get tickets for Tuesday night since it looked like there were better seats available.
So leading up to Tuesday night, I needed to figure out a way to get Norina to dress up…so I told her I wanted to take her out to a nice dinner. But then she wondered why Tuesday night, and not her birthday on Wednesday. I said because I wanted to play golf on Wednesday night…which didn’t really make her happy… so I actually had to blow my surprise a little bit for Wednesday, and tell her that I was planning on taking the day off and had something else planned. But at least now I had her thinking we were going out to a nice dinner on Tuesday. Because the show was at 7 though, I couldn’t actually take her out….so when I brought home some take-out Boxer Ramen, she was pretty confused. I just told her it was our pre-dinner meal, since where we were going served small portions. On a side note, this was our first time eating Boxer Ramen, and it was really good!
After we finished eating, we then started driving downtown, and she kept wondering where we were going. It wasn’t until we were around PSU, probably 3 blocks away from Keller Auditorium that it dawned on her where we were going, and what we were going to see. I kept trying to deny it, but by now, the cat was out of the bag. She was really excited about it though, and I was happy for that!
So we parked and got our tickets from will call, and it looked like our seats would be pretty good! I only knew generally where our seats would be, because I bought them from a 3rd party site – but they wound up being center orchestra maybe probably around 10 rows back or so…so we had a really nice view! The musical itself was fantastic!! It was funny, entertaining, and the actors and actresses were all really great and sang everything super well! It was a top notch production, and a wonderful way to start off Norina’s birthday celebration as she loved it!
7/17 – SEATTLE-ISH
Since the day I told Norina that I was taking off on her birthday, she kept pestering about what we were doing and where we were going. But I wouldn’t budge…well…not really. I told her that we were going to see flowers in the gardens. We’d go to the Rose Garden….eat some fried chicken from Fred Meyer….go to the Chinese Gardens…and that was pretty much it. She didn’t really believe me, but I actually wasn’t fully lying.
So Wednesday morning, we both slept in a little more than we usual, but not too late, as I wanted to get a decent jump on the day. I whipped up a batch of Red Lobster cheddar bay biscuits for us to start off the day, and then we headed up north.
The whole way driving, Norina had no idea where we were going…and it really wasn’t too obvious…plus, I made her bring some of her books to study a little in the car. As we were nearing our first stop, she caught a sign that say Factory Outlet Way…but still didn’t really think too much of it. 5 minutes later…we were there! The Nike Clearance Store in Centralia! Ok…this stop was probably just as much for me as it was for her, because I had just gone to a training class at Nike where we learned that there were really great deals here…so I wanted to check it out. But I told her that she could get whatever she wanted here for her birthday today….so she happily picked out some shoes and clothes for herself! And I got myself a Sam Darnold Jets jersey!
We spent a little more time there than I had thought we would, so it was already getting close to lunch…not quite hungry yet, but getting there. So I told her that we were going to head back home now if she could hold out until we got back into Portland to eat…and she was fine with that. Of course that wasn’t really my plan though – and she actually didn’t realize it until she looked up and saw that we had just passed Tacoma. It was then that she knew…. we were going to Jollibee!! Again…I can’t lie…this was going to be a nice treat for me too! We wound up eating pretty well there…I think we got a 6-piece, adobe rice, pancit palabok, and a mango pie! (although we saved a couple pieces of chicken for later). It was of course…delicious! My plan was actually to get it all to go, and eat a nearby lake, but unfortunately it was raining out….which also would put a damper on my other plans for the day. But anyways, after lunch, we decided to get a yummy mango birthday cake from the Red Ribbon Bake Shope next door! Our tummies were happy!
After lunch, we continued our drive to the next spot in our birthday surprise tour. It was still raining though, so I changed my plans a little and drove out to the furthest spot in my plan instead…hoping that either the rain would stop, or that it just wasn’t raining there. I figured it was a possibility since the rain had been off and on all day, depending on where we were. So we wound up going to the South Seattle College Campus, and Norina was a little confused now… and I was a little lost too. It took a bit of driving around and looking for hard to find signs…but we finally found it…the Seattle Chinese Gardens…just on the edge of campus. The garden was pretty nice…well maintained…not a ton to see, but still nice to walk around in. Plus, it was free! 🙂 The rain was still coming down, but at least it was only a slight off and on drizzle here…so not too bad. Overall, a nice little visit.
After checking out all of the pathways here, we started to make our way back down south a little bit to the Japanese Kubota Gardens. This place was pretty huge…and again…free! But now it was pouring out…we tried to wait it out for a little bit in the car, but there was no sign of it letting up, so we decided to just tough it out and explore with our hoods up. But thankfully, maybe after about 20-30 minutes of walking / finding shelters to stay under….it stopped! So we were able to enjoy a nice amount of the garden in overcast…but dry weather! It was a really nice place…and probably beautiful on a nice sunny day. But what was nice…we basically had the whole place to ourselves!
One last stop on the garden tour for the day…the Highline SeaTac Botanical Gardens. This place was actually transplanted from another area, which is now a part of the SeaTac airport…which in itself, is pretty impressive how they could have moved the garden like that. Anyways, the map at the entrance made this place look huge! It was actually quite small though, but did have a good amount to see! Some of the flowers unfortunately weren’t in bloom, but it was still definitely a nice place to walk around a little bit. Plus…you guessed it…it was free! 🙂
It was starting to get late now (given we had to drive back home and I had work the next day), so we decided we had even gardens for a day, and made our way back home. We did make a pit stop back at Jollibee though, to deliver some fried chicken to those craving some Jollibee back home. A lot of traffic coming home…but, we eventually made it. Overall, even though the rain put a damper on some of my plans and our day, it was still a really fun and successful surprise of a day, and I think Norina really enjoyed it as her birthday celebration!
The Dating Life of Norina and Jonathan 