The Birthday "Surprise"

It occured to me this morning that I still have not posted about last weekend and my Birthday Surprise for DH!!

DH does not like surprises. This *does not compute* for me. My family does surprises, and we are the kind of family where finding out about a surprise in advance (like finding your christmas present, or even guessing them for example), is something to feel guilty about. However, DH is totally different. He hates surprises and he stresses until you cave and tell him. I remember one time I told him I got him his present about a month out and he made me tell him right there and then (it was a video game, nothing to stress over!). Anyways, so when I told him 6 weeks ago I was planning a surprise for his Birthday I expected he would waste no time in getting me to tell him. However, he held off. He did not comment on it, did not seem to be thinking about it too much, and I was impressed. Turns out this attempted at ignoring it was only a temporary measure because about a week before his birthday he went over the edge and started begging to be told. I ended up giving in the night before. I almost wish he had just begged me to tell him months ago so it wasn't SO CLOSE to being a real surprise.

That aside- it was a good weekend. Saturday, after dropping my little sister off at the airport, we headed north to Canton to go to the Pro-Football Hall of Fame. It was pretty exciting. I wore my Vikings Jersey and DH wore his Lions jersey. We spent about 3 hrs there. Overall, it was a lot of fun. They had some really cool stuff. Of course, being the critical person I am I also had some complaints. They have a theater that plays a video called "Road to the Super Bowl". While the video turned out to be interesting, it wasn't what I expected and was the most ridiculos waste of technology I have seen. Someone must have built it in the 70s and said "this will be SOOO cool!". Basically, half way through the movie the theater roated 180 degrees to a different screen. The new screen was playing the exact same video and quality as the first screen, and during the turn you missed part of the video. Ridiculous. Also, with the title, I thought the video would be about the hx of the Super Bowl or what it takes to get there. Instead it was a recap of the most recent NFL season for the Saint's and Colt's, which, by the way included a painful recap of the Viking's playoff loss last year. Besides the ridiculous theater there were some other shortcomings. There were some unlabelled displays, and displays that looked like they were meant to rotate so you could see a different part that did not work. They also had a tendency to start the narratives as if you already knew what was going on, which was rarely the case. "Team X, who is famous for the scandal in 1906, had a second problem in 1910 when blank happened", screw 1910, I want to know what the scandal was!! DH's main complaint was that they did not provide much information that is not readily available online - he was looking for anecdotes and interesting stories about the famous players rather than just stats. As I said, overall it was very interesting, it just could have been better.

After that we headed off to Pittsburgh. We had tickets for the Pre-Season opener between the Detroit Lions and Pittsburgh Stealers. My previous experience with Pittsburgh is limited to briefly driving through and stopping at the Carnegie Mellon campus back in 2001 during my grand college tour of the Eastern US. In that 2 hrs, I formed the impression that it was a beautiful city with awesome views and built-in green space. This second visit confirmed that, and showed me that its a very active city w/lots going on. We stayed at the Radisson just throught he tunnel from downtown (great location, but based on some other problems relating to food and elevators, I don't recommend it). We parked downtown about 2 hrs before kickoff and walked around, across the bridge, and along the river to the Stadium. I was very impressed with the carnival atmosphere surrounding the game - everyone was having a great time, and there were so many people out celebrating the start of the season. The stadium is impressive and beautiful. It includes a hall of fame and houses the Super Bowl trophies (which they have several of). It overlooks the river. DH only got heckled once in his Barry Sanders jersey. We enjoyed the first half of the game. 3/4 of the way through the first half I went to the bathroom and heard on the radio that big storms were moving in. Shortly after that a rumor went around that they were going to have to call the game for lightning. Shortly after that, it started raining. DH and I got soaked. Shortly after that, they put the game on hold. DH and I, as wet as we were, decided to call it a night and head back to the car and hotel rather than waiting to see if the game would restart. By the time the game did end up restarting we were back in the hotel bar in dry clothes, and did not regret the decision. In the morning we ended up hitting up a place for brunch and heading back to Columbus.

It was not exactly the way I planned it, but it was still fund and I am sure we will remember it for a long time. I am never going to try to surprise DH with more than a small present again, and he owes me a surprise in return for not letting me surprise him!!