Nate's anniversary surprise!

I have been planning this anniversary surprise for months now, with the help of Ken Martin. See, they've been talking about getting tattoos to honor their good friend, Ryan Casper, that passed away last year. After hearing about it for so long, and all the ideas Nate had for it, I decided that I would have it done as a surprise for him for our anniversary. (I know, not exactly what you would think as an anniversary gift, but sometimes the best present is the one that's going to mean the most. Ya know? It may not be directly related to our anniversary, but I knew Nate would love it.) So, I had a friend of mine design it and set up an appointment. 

All I told Nate was that his present was going to require a very large amount of trust in me and a complete stranger. Then I asked him if he was okay with that. He said yes, so I forged on. (Had he said no, I would have chosen something else...) All the while this was going on, Nate was planning to get a matching tattoo with Kenny. You can see how this would complicate things, since I had to be like "yeah, that's a great idea!" and totally disregard what I had already planned. Luckily, Kenny is good at letting ideas die down, or ignoring Nate's frantic messages to get him in touch with the artist, or something. So, when the day came, Nate had no idea what to expect. The plan? I was going to take him for his surprise, then he was going to meet up with Kenny to have their tattoos done. Little did Nate know, Kenny had planned his tattoo at the same time Nate would be getting his! And to make it more perfect, it was scheduled for the day after Casper's birthday and 2 days after Kenny's birthday on April 14, 2012. So, here's how the day turned out:

We woke up and headed to meet Kenny for breakfast at Joe's Cafe (amazing food btw). Well, Kenny's car didn't cooperate, but we ate anyway. Then we dropped the kids off with Grandpa Clyde and headed to Doug Smith Kia to try and figure out how to get my new car since we had a little time to kill. We kinda goofed off a little.

 After that, I took Nate over to Smoothie King. Delicious smoothies, and the perfect thing to give Nate's blood sugar a good spike before his surprise! 30min later, we arrived at Zen Tattoo for his surprise. We got Nate all checked in, then I told him that I wasn't going to let him see the design until it was done and on his body (unless he refused). I told him how big the "pink pony" was going to be and told him to pick a spot. He was then blindfolded for the tattoo process to begin.

It took 3 hours, and he was blindfolded the whole time. I was texting Kenny the whole time getting updates of his own tattoo and sending him pics of Nate. Two besties getting tats for their friend at the same time was pretty cool, but Nate didn't know. He was the talk of the shop because he was blindfolded AND didn't know what he was getting, but everyone there was great and played along. They would all make comments like "that's a rad pegasus" or "that's my favorite care bear" or "that's the cutest pink sparkly unicorn". 

When it was all done, I asked Nate what he thought it was and he said "something with curly hair"! Boy was he wrong! His blindfold was taken off and he was allowed to see the finished product. 

And, it's a good thing he loves it, or I would have been in the dog house! I told him to call Kenny and see if they were still on for their dinner date. Kenny told him that he got his tattoo also and would meet him at Bonnie's. The dinner date was off due to Kenny not feeling too well, so we went to Apollo Burger with him then called it a day. 

All in all, it's a good thing Nate trusts me. Happy Early Anniversary!!!