Zach's Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY! We are so, so, SO thankful to have such a wonderful, handsome, intelligent, faithful MAN in our lives. I continually feel that I never show Zach how much I appreciate, respect, and love him enough... EVER. He is such a great father and caring husband, I knew I needed to give him something to show that.

I kept it a surprise, well mostly. I was struggling in deciding exactly what to do. The options included: zip lining, tickets to Circus de Soleil, or something better. I figured out what this something better was by looking at the bucket list we created about a year ago. As I was looking into this something better, he walked in and caught me. I thought it probably was given away, but I still played it off.

I told Zach that we would be eating breakfast out for his birthday and then dropping Ellie off at VBS before he went to work. I had asked him a few days before what his morning schedule looked like, which he then told me was mostly clear. Well I found out the morning of his birthday that he decided to fill it up. BAD! I had scheduled his surprise for the morning of his birthday, so I flipped out a little bit on him. Awful birthday start, but he forgave me quickly and rescheduled his calls (secretly thinking he might be getting what he caught me looking at). After breakfast and on our way to his surprise, he asked what he was doing. I told him to guess in which he responded with sky-diving (not his surprise). I completely led him to believe he was right, and he immediately started freaking out. Zach has never wanted to go sky-diving until a few weeks ago which he made a comment he wanted to. So I played off that until he started to sweat, I then felt bad and told him his surprise... A FLYING LESSON! He was completely stoked and we headed to the airport.

The plane:

The pilot:

Zach has taken a huge interest in flying since he travels a TON. He used to have a tiny fear of it when he first started traveling for business, but once he overcame it, he became VERY interested. He would watch videos, research, and have discussions with pilots about his new found interest. He has expressed multiple times how he would love to be a pilot, hence why it was an item on his bucket list.

Here are some shots from his flight:

downtown Raleigh:

RBC Center:
Landing:

Zach loved it. He now can say he has flown a plane, although he's not quite sure how he like handling a big machine thousands of feet off the ground. I think I scored a few brownie points here, but I am so glad Zach enjoyed his gift and felt loved and special.

We ended this special day, upon his request, with a cookie cake (complete with the only candle we had that I could find):
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LOVE!