I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 22.

I feel like I never want to be older than 22. It just seems like the perfect age. Maybe 23 or 24 would be okay, too, but I guess I'll know for sure when I get to that.

Anyway, I had a great birthday! Lots of little things went totally NOT according to plan (!!!!) but what can you do? It was still festive and all my friends came and life was wonderful.

Hopefully it doesn't come off as braggy to say that I got a lot of WONDERFUL presents. Seriously, I have the best friends ever- and they all know me so well.

Tristan, the love of my life, got me these pearl earrings from James Avery. I told you I love pearls!

They're soooo beautiful and I wasn't expecting them at all! My love has good taste. Plus, it continues the tradition! If you recall, I mentioned in a previous blog post that Tristan got me this ring last Christmas...

What a beauty!

Considering that he's going to Pick a Pearl for me at Epcot in a week or so, pretty soon I'll have a complete pearl jewelry collection... all from him! How romantic.

Now that Christmas, my mom's birthday and my birthday are over, it's really time to start getting excited about 2014... namely our Disney trip! Tristan purchased a set of Disney puzzles for us to do. The set came with eight puzzles, and my birthday was the ninth day until our trip. He wants us to do a puzzle every night as a countdown. He's so cute!

I mentioned (I think) that we got a ton of Disney gift cards for our trip. It's giving us more flexibility to spend and Tristan loves his food. He wanted to do another special meal. The one thing we didn't have planned was a character meal, so we booked...

OHANA!

Ohana! I have been here once before, but Tristan has not. We had to narrow down our options. For us, it was between Crystal Palace, Ohana or 1900 Park Fare. Crystal Palace would have been much preferred but there were no available reservations short notice.

So it came down to Ohana or 1900 Park Fare. We considered characters, time and the kind of buffet we wanted to experience. Ultimately it came down to Ohana because it would be earlier, giving us more time to eat and relax before park opening. We also prefer to see Mickey, Pluto, Lilo and Stitch over the 1900 Park Fare characters (who, IMO, are more easily found in the parks) and like the idea of having food brought to us, as opposed to potentially missing characters while we are up getting food.

I am really excited about this! My time at Ohana was very memorable and I think Tristan will have a great time too. Nothing says Disney like a character meal so I'm very happy we got to fit this one into our food budget- with the help of our friends and family, of course!

I've been eyeballing the 10-day forecast for Disney pretty religiously. Currently we have Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday weather. All we need is Friday and we'd be set!

Those lows are a little sketchy...

I was really crossing my fingers for 70s weather. Thursday looks GREAT to me! I really want to wear dresses and that can't be done comfortably with weather that is too chilly so this is awesome. It's definitely cooler here in San Antonio (though not by much... high 50s mostly) and I've been wearing dresses with tights comfortably so I think we will be A-OK.

I can't wait!

-Mari