You know it was one heck of a weekend when I’m still talking about it on the Friday after it ended.

After getting back from Atlanta this past weekend, my cousin Marisa (whom you might remember from the time we had a little incident in the McDonald’s drive-thru line as well as from the time she came up with an interesting way to stock her kitchen drawers) and her family invited me to come over to watch a little football with them.

(Now, even if you don’t like football, stick around because this post is coming back to British Boy AS EVERY GOOD BLOG POST SHOULD.)

When I talk about Marisa’s family on the blog, sometimes I mention that they’re my “fake family.” This is because Marisa, who is my first cousin, was raised by her father and stepmother who aren’t related to me by blood if you want to get technical about it. Luckily for me, Marisa’s family doesn’t want to get technical about it and have recently taken me in like the lonely post-grad girl I am, thus the invite to football night.

Look at my beautiful cousin, y’all, just look at her. She is SO darling I almost can’t stand it.

When I got there, Aunt Haley was making a cake. So I’m standing in the kitchen catching up with her when I see that she’s putting a bowl of batter into the microwave. Immediately I start thinking that she’s lost her mind but, seeing as we don’t know each other that well, I didn’t think it was appropriate to say “Um, Aunt Haley, I think you meant to put that in the oven.”

Nine minutes later she goes to pull it out of the microwave and it’s just this half-baked gooey mess and I’m five seconds away from going to get Marisa to say “THERE IS A CAKE CRISIS IN THE KITCHEN” when Aunt Haley starts telling me that I’m going to love her famous “lava” cake.

Y’all. Y’ALL. I have never, ever, EVER tasted a dessert more delicious in my entire life. Seriously, it is THE best cake I’ve ever had and to think I was being all prideful thinking Aunt Haley didn’t know how to bake a cake in the microwave! Pride cometh before a fall, but thankfully in this case it was a fall directly into the most delicious cake batter in the world.

I spent most of the game sitting beside Aunt Haley talking to her about what’s been going on in my life, but I did pay attention long enough to listen to the entire room of people talk about what a great player Tim Tebow of the Florida Gators is (keep this in mind because it comes in handy in a few seconds).

The next night was when Gosling Nicholas, Nathan and I headed to the new College and Career thing, you know, the night I met British Boy, aka The Night That Began The Rest Of My Life. They fed 43 of us breakfast for supper, had an amazing devotional with us and then turned on the Wii so we could have a little recreational fun and by some of us I mean Gosling and British Boy.

You’ll notice that no one else is around and that’s because we were the last to leave because Gosling and British Boy were having a little Wii baseball duel whilst I sat nearby taking pictures for the blog because, remember, I wanted to document the day I met my future spouse.

So we finally leave (which, remember, is when British Boy called me “love” as he was shutting my car door AND NO I’M NEVER GOING TO LET YOU FORGET THAT MOMENT) and, as we’re pulling out of the driveway, we begin talking about football and by “we” I mean the boys because, really, does this look like the face of a girl who knows anything about football?

But then British Boy says something about the Gators being his favorite football team and all the sudden I have these bells and whistles going off in my head because HEY, DIDN’T I JUST WATCH THEIR GAME LAST NIGHT?

So I casually mentioned that I caught the game last night and begin praying that he won’t ask me about it because, hello, like I actually paid attention.  British Boy is all “WHAT? YOU LIKE THE GATORS?” because, even though he didn’t necessarily express this, we all know he was thinking about how this was the very confirmation he needed that he was to take me as his betrothed.

And I’m all “Oh yes, and what about that Tim Tebow?” which was quite the risky move considering I couldn’t exactly remember if I had the quarterback’s name right and, when pretending to know about a sport, it’s nice if you get the major players’ names right, you know.  But I took a risk and IT PAID HIGH DIVIDENDS because — and I kid you not — British Boy throws his hands in the air and says “You and I really are going to be best friends!” and I start hyperventilating and almost drive into a tree at the end of the driveway which causes British Boy to throw up his hands again but this time not in a good way, more like a I’M TOO YOUNG TO LOSE MY LIFE kind of way.

You don’t think this damaged my ring by spring campaign, do you?

Well, I’m very glad you all enjoyed listening to Nathan’s British accent in yesterday’s video seeing as it’s probably the last time you or I will ever hear it after he reads that post. Lest you think I’m regretting putting my unabashed infatuation out there on the world wide web, I will have you know that I proudly stand behind that post mainly because you needed someone to bring a good accent to you and I? I DELIVERED TO YOUR DOORSTEP, PEOPLE.

The surprising thing about your comments on the post was that some of them centered around Nicholas when, hello, he was obviously not the point of yesterday’s post. You liked his facial expressions, you liked his deep voice, blah, blah, blah. I cannot understand how you people were able to focus on American-accented Nicholas when I provided you with straight up British goodness.

But since you seem to be enamored by Nicholas, I feel it is my duty to feed your obsession by offering the following observations:

1. Yes, his voice is very deep. It’s actually way deeper on the phone than in person (or on video). I would offer to set-up a time for each of you to have a personal phone conversation with Nicholas himself so that you could see what I’m referring to but, quite honestly, you couldn’t handle it. As it is now, I only allow our phone calls to last approximately 1.2 minutes and you don’t know how long it’s taken me to build up strength to hear his phone voice for even that long. You, my grasshoppers, would break at the very moment he said “hello.”

2. I don’t know what his Irish accent sounds like, but I’ll be getting it on video for you at my earliest convenience. This will involve me bribing him in order to get him to agree to appear on another blog video and, at the moment, he doesn’t owe me any favors. This could take awhile.

3. Someone mentioned that they thought he looks like Ryan Gosling (of The Notebook fame) but that they were sure it had already been mentioned before. I had actually never noticed that before I read the comment, but now IT IS TOTALLY OBVIOUS. I had to drop something by Nicholas’ apartment last night and, immediately upon getting out of my car, said “Did you see the Ryan Gosling comment?” He had and began to explain that it’s just because of his facial structure or something like that but I was all DON’T CARE, JUST GONNA START CALLING YOU GOSLING NOW.

4. He said I’m not allowed to call him Gosling in person but that I can refer to him as that on the blog. I’m still thinking it over, but it’s pretty safe to assume that you can begin monogramming pillows that read “Gosling” now if you so desire.

5. Speaking of Nicholas’ apartment, it was the first time I had been inside and let me just report to you that it was cleaner than any male apartment I have EVER been into. I mean, there was not a single thing out of place, y’all. I did not know that male apartments such as this existed. It was actually a pretty cool place, what with his art on the walls and French press coffee maker on the countertop.

Of course, I personally believe it could have been a bit nicer if he had, oh I don’t know, maybe a few framed photographs of Nathan.

Especially if they were in those frames that let you push a button and hear a recorded message.

Nine moments from my day:

9. Waking up before the alarm clock because I was having a nightmare that involved Cate and I being chased on a farm.

8. Pulling my favorite sweater out of the closet to wear today even though it isn’t actually cold enough for sweaters quite yet.

7. Getting a fantastic parking spot at work, something that rarely happens unless I engage a little road rage.

6. Receiving my first math quiz back in class only to find that I made a score higher than -1 but lower than 1.  You do the math (literally).

5. Raising my hand in math class to ask — and I kid not — “With all due respect, sir, when will I use algebraic equations in my life?”

4. Hearing my professor respond “Honestly, probably never.”

3. Kicking a soccer ball to Nicholas inside his apartment and getting it past him, finally proving what we both knew all along: I’m far superior than him when it comes to soccer.

2. Coming home to two puppies who literally turn circles because they’re so happy to see me at night.

1. Realizing that I not only have enough hot pink hair rollers to spell out the number 9, but could actually do the same for numbers 1 – 10 in one setting if I so wanted.

Last weekend, my cousin Marisa invited me to go to a new “College and Career” type Bible study on Sunday night that is hosted by her church. Nicholas and I go to church together, so I asked him if he’d want to come along with me since I was trying something new. He did and we decided I’d pick him up since I have a GPS and we’d be needing it to get to the house where this event was happening.

When I pick him up at his apartment, he says “I invited someone to go with us… I hope you don’t mind.” And so I was all “Of course I don’t mind!” but secretly I DID MIND because I just KNEW it was gonna be some girl who was gonna flirt with him the whole way to Bible Study and then I was gonna have to start the “Permission to Date Nicholas” application process and HELLO, IT TAKES AWHILE TO GET FINGERPRINTING AND BACKGROUND CHECKS DONE.

So imagine my surprise when we pull up to an apartment and a guy walks out.

Now, as I’m watching him walk to the car –

(because I could not look away seeing as he was HOT AS FIRE and by HOT AS FIRE you know that I am, of course, simply referring to his heart for God NOT his physical appearance because, really, like I would notice if some boy was attractive)

– Nicholas says something about practicing my British accent but I don’t get where this is going because I’m too busy thinking CUTE BOY ABOUT TO GET IN MY CAR. And then the door opens and I say hello and then he says “‘ello.”

BECAUSE HE IS BRITISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I flip around and look at Nicholas and he’s already laughing because he knows how I have a bit of thing for boys with the British accent and here has gone AND SUPPLIED ME WITH ONE AND I AM TOTALLY FLUSTERED.

So this boy, whose name is Nathan, climbs in my backseat (AND HE’S SITTING RIGHT BEHIND ME, JUST SO YOU HAVE THE VISUAL) and I’m giving myself an internal pep talk that went a little something like this –

“Okay, this is your first chance ever being in a car with a British boy so you need to play it cool and quit flipping out and don’t use your fake British accent and, whatever you do, don’t say “whilst” instead of “while” and WHY DID YOU NOT DO A BETTER JOB FIXING YOUR HAIR THIS MORNING?”

Let that be a lesson learned the next time you want to sleep in instead of fixing your hair, girls.

So we start heading towards this house and Nicholas, God bless his darling heart, starts basically reading off my resume to Nathan and then that makes Nathan start asking me questions in his accent and I am not proud of what I’m about to tell you but here goes –

I started driving off the side of the road.

Y’all. Y’ALL. I drove off the side of the road seven different times on the way to Bible Study and I COULD NOT HELP IT BECAUSE HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DRIVE WHEN SOME BOY IS SITTING BEHIND YOU TALKING IN THAT ACCENT?

So Nathan begins noticing I’m repeatably driving off the road and says “You know, I’m getting a bit scared back here” and I’m suddenly thinking I HAVE RUINED MY CHANCES WITH BRITISH BOY. So I start trying to drive better and meanwhile Nicholas is just sitting in the passenger seat having a lovely time laughing because he is aware that I am flustered to the point I’m about to pull the car over so he can drive because, obviously, no one should let me behind the wheel when there is a British boy in the car.

We finally made it to the house and ended up having a blast for the next three hours. We ate dinner and even played a bit of Wii bowling at which I failed miserably mainly because BRITISH BOY IS STANDING BESIDE ME, THREE FEET AWAY, OH MY GOODNESS I CANNOT BREATHE.

So it’s time to leave and I get in the car and Nathan’s saying goodbye to our hosts and just as if it’s nothing, reaches over and closes my car door for me but right before he closes the car door he says “There you go, love” AND I BASICALLY PASSED OUT RIGHT THEN.

Seriously, my heart started beating faster just typing that last sentence. HE CALLED ME “LOVE,” DID YOU HEAR THAT PART? YOU KNOW, THE PART WHERE HE CALLED ME “LOVE?”

We ended up at Nathan’s apartment and I am proud to tell you that I had the presence of mind to get video footage of this boy for you in the form of a blog video. I even asked him a few questions about his love life, but ONLY because I was trying to help you single readers out NOT because I was, you know, doing personal research or anything.

Things we shall note about this video:

1. He is a sharp dresser, no?

2. “I mean, I’m single… I don’t know if I mentioned that a few times tonight.” CLEVER, RIGHT?

3. “Check… check… check, check, check, check, check!!!” Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner at the Whom Shall Date British Boy game!

4. “I can’t cook, but I can clean up the mess she made.” OH YES, I ACTUALLY SAID THAT.

5. Nicholas looks really thrilled about being my supposed future husband. Real thrilled.

6. I don’t want to talk about the part where Nathan gets my name wrong.

7. Except to say DID YOU HEAR WHEN HE SAID “MY BELOVED, AMY BETH?” BECAUSE IF YOU DIDN’T CATCH THAT, GO BACK TO 3:54 AND LISTEN CLOSELY.

8. I edited out a little part where Nathan tries to kick a balloon (I’ll explain why he was kicking a balloon later). The video ends after Nathan says something about he and I going to coffee because I got so flustered I DROPPED THE CAMERA.

This video was actually made on Sunday night and, as fate would have it, Nicholas, Nathan and I actually ended up going to Starbucks on Monday night to work on a project together (and, really, it’s almost the same thing as going out on a coffee date except for the whole silly project and pesky Nicholas thing). I’m happy to report that everything went swimmingly.

Until I hit my head on the large round Starbucks light fixture as I got up from our table.

EDITED TO ADD: Suddenly the video above isn’t showing the last few seconds where British Boy mentions going for coffee; it’s cutting off where the transition was supposed to be. So here’s the last eleven seconds of the video, mainly because I would hate it if you missed the part WHERE HE MENTIONS GOING FOR COFFEE.

Especially since “going for coffee” obviously translates into “let’s get married.” Obviously.

I had lunch with one of my former Starlite college girls today, a girl who is 19 and in her sophomore year of college. She shared some things going on in her life over lunch today and, for a brief moment, I felt like I was back in that dining hall six years ago listening to myself talk. She’s kind of on her own in life, missing some key emotional support figures. As I listened to her talk, I recognized what she needed today because I remember needing it myself: someone older to tell her they believe in her.

And so I told her. I sat my fork down, looked her dead in the eyes and told her that I absolutely believe in her, mainly because I believe in what God’s doing in her. I told her that I’m proud of her for going to her classes and writing her papers and avoiding the rebellion that usually hits right around those mid-college years. I told her that she will make it, that these days of feeling alone in the world will not go unredeemed.

I don’t know if she believed me because, to be honest, after love is there really any other feeling stronger than loneliness? I know that I wouldn’t have believed He could redeem those lonely moments if someone had of told me what I was telling her six years ago.

But I believed them today as I realized that the redemption of my own lonely days in the Dining Hall was sitting right across the table from me.

Let me just assure you that, in a million years of guessing what Cate’s birthday surprise was for me, I would have never, ever, EVER guessed what she was taking me to. When I got into her car on Friday afternoon, she gave me the cutest piece of paper decorated with a clue that let me guess at least which city we were headed to: Atlanta!

But it’s what we were going to do that really blew my mind. Once we arrived at the hotel, she still hadn’t told me where we were going but I knew something was up when I put on the shirt she had bought me and realized it was an off the shoulder shirt. And then she told me I had 45 minutes to get as glam as possible, yet another indication that this wasn’t going to be my typical Friday night. By the time she was putting glitter on my cheeks, I was going absolutely crazy so she finally handed me my last clue.

She was taking me to a Britney Spears concert. And no, I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING.

Now, just writing that sentence seems a little surreal and don’t be surprised if you see that word pop up a bit because, hello, the entire experience was surreal BUT IN A GOOD WAY. If you’re thinking in your head that I don’t really strike you as a Britney fanatic, you would be correct, but that’s not why Cate took me to her concert.

She took me because JORDIN SPARKS WAS THERE.

That probably doesn’t mean a lot to y’all, but if you’ll remember, I’ve had a slight obsession with Jordin’s song Battlefield this summer. Jordin was the opening act for Britney and let me just tell you: there was no one — and I mean NO ONE — in Philips Arena who was more excited to hear that song live than your girl ABB. When the opening notes started, I began absolutely flipping out, something Cate conveniently captured on video (her camera, not mine, so I don’t have access to it just yet). Our friend Kate was with us, too, and since she was sitting between us, she unfortunately was the one I constantly grabbed onto saying “DO YOU SEE JORDIN? DO YOU HEAR THIS WONDERFUL MUSIC?”

If it wasn’t enough to hear Jordin sing my very favorite song live and in person, SHE WORE HER HAIR BIG. Like, HUGE. I mean, it was all over the place, but in a good way, like a “I’m-prancing-across-the-stage-singing-my-hit-song-Battlefield-with-gorgeous-huge-hair.”

Britney’s part of the concert was absolutely surreal AND DID ANYONE ELSE SEE THAT WORD COMING? I’ve kind of grown up with Britney since we’re almost the same age, so it was a little weird to be seeing her live on stage. I don’t know a lot of her music, but I do know her mainstream stuff. As I was sitting there listening to her sing, I couldn’t help but think about her lyrics and her life and then I was all AMY BETH, TURN YOUR MIND OFF AND ENJOY THE CONCERT but I couldn’t because, once you’ve been in girls’ ministry, you’re always in girls’ ministry. So Britney’s out there singing about some radar of hers and I’m all I WONDER IF SHE FEELS LOVED WHEN SHE GOES TO BED AT NIGHT?

We got back to the hotel late and I feel asleep sometime around 2 a.m. which made it totally fair for us to sleep in until almost noon and, frankly, the only reason I woke up then was because Cate had crawled into my hotel bed, put her face right next to mine and told me to get out of bed which, for the record, is total role reversal in our friendship.

We went to California Pizza Kitchen, at which we may or may not have spotted a very famous rapper but that’s a story for another time. After lunch we went shopping and I am happy to tell you that I had my first experiences in both H & M and Anthropologie, two stores I’m now absolutely in love with. We also went to Z Gallerie, Papyrus, Sephorah, etc. Cate’s whole point of planning the trip was to give me a “college weekend experience” because she’s very aware of the fact that I didn’t do a lot of “normal” stuff in college because of Starlite. It was the perfect birthday gift, mainly because I got to spend time with her.

And, you know, hear Battlefield live and in person, of course.

P.S. – I’ll tell you the boy story tomorrow; in order to prepare, practice your best British accent.

P.P.S. – Oh yes, HE HAS A BRITISH ACCENT.

Okay.

So I just had one of the funnest (wait, is that a word?), packed weekends of my life and I know I promised to tell you about it this morning but I’m WORN FLAT OUT so I’m going to beg off for today and promise to be back here early tomorrow morning to tell you all about Cate’s big birthday surprise for me as well as the rest of my weekend once I got back home which conveniently involved me meeting the man of my dreams but don’t worry, it’s no big deal, I JUST GOT VIDEO FOOTAGE OF HIM FOR YOU.

So, um, see you tomorrow.

I have no idea where Cate is taking me for my birthday weekend trip, but you better believe that, wherever we end up, I’ll be wearing my all-time favorite pair of jammies.

So, it’s kind of hard to know where to even begin, seeing as I’m sitting here blow drying my hair using some very creative neck / shoulder coordination skills whilst typing this very post and my eyes keep involuntarily closing because hey, I didn’t get to bed until 3:08 a.m. last night which is a solid indication that year 25 of my life is already starting out with a bang and by bang I mean I’VE ONLY HAD FOUR HOURS OF SLEEP.

But more on that later.

First of all, thank you for your very sweet birthday wishes in the comments and in emails.  But even more importantly, thank you for recognizing how big my hair was even as a little girl.  As I was putting those pictures into that post, I kept thinking “I wonder if I should mention how big my hair was to make sure they notice it” but then I realized that, when your hair is larger than your three year old torso, it’s a pretty sure bet that somebody’s gonna notice.

My actual birthday was very full of all kinds of different emotions, but the overwhelming one was thankfulness that I have friends who feel more like family.  The women from my office took me out to lunch at a Japanese steakhouse and, after lunch, gave me a gift card to Pier One so I can get some things for my new house!  While I was at work I had several birthday surprises, including candy delivery from one of my college girls, flowers sent from one of my best friend’s entire family and even a call from an elementary school class to sing to me via speakerphone!

Late in the afternoon I got a text from Clay informing me that I needed to be ready to leave my house at 6 p.m. because he and Cate were taking me to dinner.  He drove and, on our way to Cate’s house, we started talking about how her parents were gone to the beach.  When we got there, Cate didn’t come out which is totally normal for her because only once in our friendship have I ever showed up at her house to find her actually ready to leave.

We head inside and I still have not caught onto what’s happening due to some tricky car maneuvering and flat-out lying by Clay and Cate.  I walk through the door, head down because I’m writing a very intense text, and HELLO, IT WAS A SURPRISE DINNER PARTY!

We all had a great time and I am so sad that I didn’t get good pictures for you.  I didn’t really start taking pictures until almost everyone was gone and it was only Clay, Cate, Nicholas (from the Egypt trip, remember) and I left.  We baked some chocolate chip cookies, made some coffee and played Uno Attack for awhile.  I totally shamed Nicholas into letting me win one round because it was my birthday, but sweet party planner Cate won the whole round of games by the end.

I ended up going for a walk in a park on my college campus last night, something that’s become a birthday tradition for me.  Nicholas walked with me* and we proceeded to have a 3.5 hour deep, deep talk and I had all these plans of telling you all this serious stuff we talked about but I just looked at the time and I’ve got to run.

Especially because my birthday gift from Cate (AS IF A PARTY WASN’T ENOUGH) apparently begins when she picks me up at 3 p.m. today for a surprise trip.  I have absolutely no idea where we’re going but about 20 different people know where it is that she’s taking me and have assured me that not only am I going to love it, but that there’s no way I could ever guess where it is.

All I know is that she gave me a gift bag last night containing a black shirt with rhinestones on it and told me to have it and a pair of jeans on when she picks me up today.  Did I mention there was a long silver chain necklace in the bag, too?  And that I’m supposed to bring an overnight bag with me?

I’ll tell you about whatever this trip is on Monday, of course.

If we make it back, that is.

* Just in the interest of full disclosure, we’re totally rocking the friendship boat, not the love boat.

“Your life has a plot; your years have a theme.” – Max Lucado