A Week in Review: Valentine’s Day Recap + ZooTampa

Today I am sharing my “Week In Review”. I want to dive a little deeper into what goes on behind the scenes of my daily life! In this post, you will read all about my Valentine’s Day celebration and check out what I wore on my recent trip to ZooTampa. Enjoy, friends!

Monday

Monday was SUPER annoying because I was sick with a cold. I spent my birthday over the weekend at Disney World (woo!) and came back on Monday to feeling achy and sneezy.

Blah! I hate being sick because there is nothing I despise more than wasting time. Sleeping and hanging out in bed sounds luxurious, but with anxiety flowing in and out of my brain 24/7, it can be a difficult task for me.

I am a productive person and I am a major multi-tasker, so when I get sick, I have to allow my body to slow down to recover faster. Monday was spent watching TV inside my home while I drank tea and ate a lot of chicken soup.

I became addicted to this show on HGTV called Flip or Flop Atlanta. I think it’s impressive to see a couple buy crappy houses for a bargain and turn them into marvelous new homes! I believe I watched a solid 4 hours of the show before I got up to change into a new outfit to photograph for Valentine’s Day.

The couple on this show is cute and entertaining to watch! The wife is really creative with interior design elements and she will usually devise a genius plan to turn the once ugly home into a high-quality space. Atlanta is also a city on my list of places to visit, so I was interested in seeing more of the area on TV.

Tuesday

The next day I felt a little better. I had to shoot some content for Valentine’s Day and I tidied up my messy bedroom so I could take pictures on my bed. Once I made my bed, I also positioned my tripod and camera so I could snap pictures from my phone, too.

I just recently changed up the decor in my room for the holiday. I purchased a brand new white comforter from Target that is crisp and also easy to clean. It’s from the Hearth & Hand Collection with Magnolia. The white embroidered details are elegant and perfect for the upcoming springtime. A few other pieces to complete my room are my crushed velvet pillows and speckled peel & stick wallpaper.

Guess what?

I accidentally brushed up against my white comforter with the remainder of an orange face mask (yikes!) and I took a little bit of shampoo to get it out. I was worried about owning a white comforter because I am not the cleanest person in the world, but it turns out that they are even easier to clean than I originally thought.

I changed into a cute Valentine’s Day look featuring a pretty dress from Red Dress Boutique and clipped-in my hair extensions from Barefoot Blonde, too. For the look, I actually played around with putting my hair in a half-up, half-down look using soft scrunchies from Urban Outfitters. 

I applied a thick coat of pink lipstick over my lips with a Maybelline Stay Matte product and took plenty of cute and girly pictures to post to my Instagram throughout the rest of the week in honor of the holiday of love.

Wednesday

I saw my favorite band perform in St. Pete on Wednesday night with my sister, her two roommates, and our friend Brittany.

Walk The Moon played a great set list packed with my favorite songs ever! You might be familiar with the band for their hit song Shut Up and Dance.

However, they have three albums full of great songs that you NEED to listen to! The whole band is amazing to hear live. I’ve seen them perform once in Tallahassee and now for a second time here in my hometown. The talent found in this one band blows my mind each time I hear them perform.

The venue was smaller than other places in town, but I think it worked out for the best. Songs from new albums and old were played for a few hours straight.

Dancing and singing along, my friends and I were enjoying ourselves on that Wednesday night SO much! Walk The Moon has to come back to St. Pete soon!

Thursday

Valentine’s Day was an extra surprise for me this year because I was able to spend it with my boyfriend. I actually have never had a Valentine (besides my friend Maddie, love her!) and I was looking forward to Thursday all week.

Thursday (during the day) was spent working, but as soon as it was around 3:30 I stopped working and was ready to head over to Tampa where my boyfriend lives. He planned our entire evening so I was excited to see him. The anticipation of figuring out our plans for the evening was making me feel both happy and nervous at the same time!

We exchanged gifts in honor of Valentine’s Day at his house first and then each spent time getting dressed up for the occasion. I chose a pretty satin pink dress because the weather was nice and warm. My hair and makeup were already done in the morning so I slid into some pink kitten heels and we were off on our next adventure: food.

When we pulled into the parking lot for our restaurant, I didn’t know which restaurant was the one for us. I drove around anxiously finding a spot because the night was already packed with couples around us in Tampa searching for a spot to park, too.

There were quite a few food options because the location of the restaurant we ended up eating at is in a complex with other various dinner places. Brian had mentioned a certain steakhouse that he loved to me a few weeks back, and to my surprise, we ended up eating delicious steak at the restaurant he enjoys: Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse.

Wow was I impressed by Fleming’s! Not only is the restaurant inside gorgeous and high-end, but the steak lives up to its expectations. I order a filet mignon and Brian got a ribeye. We ended our night with the chocolate lava cake!

When I returned to my house at the end of the night, I was so happy to see a delivery from ProFlowers. Inside the box, I found a red vase filled with gorgeous red roses! I called up Brian and told him about the flowers and he said he was tracking the delivery during our dinner and knew I would see the roses when I got back home. The roses were the perfect surprise to an already lovely evening with my boyfriend.

Friday

On Friday night I met up with my friend Maddie.

We both love Thai food, so we ate dinner at one of her favorite Thai restaurants in Tampa. It was nice to catch up on life events and spend time together. We are both busy, I work and she is in school, so having a night to unwind with our favorite dishes is nothing less than a miracle!

Saturday/Sunday

Over the weekend, I wanted to take Brian to Disney World to experience Hollywood Studios and Epcot. I have an annual pass and I was going to get him a 3-day park hopper so we could spend time in Orlando for the next few days. I really wanted to show him the brand new Star Wars and Toy Story areas inside Hollywood Studios. Also, who wouldn’t want to take their boyfriend to Disney to wear obnoxious matching t-shirts and eat tasty Mickey Mouse ice cream bars with?!

However, I didn’t realize that it would be President’s Weekend (gasp!) and the hotels would be completely booked. Such a bummer! Every single hotel was either booked up or really expensive. So we decided not to go to Orlando over the weekend and figure out another idea to hang out and enjoy time together.

Our Valentine’s Day celebration was already amazing, so I was happy to just sit at home and watch movies together, to be honest.

I also am NOT a planner, which is one of my downfalls. I like to go with the flow, but you can’t always do that when it comes to making plans with other people. Planning is more Brian’s speed, so I definitely think I will leave most of the planning up to him from now on! Even between my sister and I, Kayla is the planner while I am a source of entertainment and I handle the food aspect of a trip, haha! Those are my two specialties.

Anyway, I texted my sister and told her we chose not to go to Orlando for the weekend and she gave me the great idea to go to ZooTampa. Brian and I ate lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings before we headed out to the zoo. He also had never been to the zoo in Tampa before, so I was eager to show him around one of my favorite Tampa spots as a kid.

ZooTampa at Lowry Park was not too busy and we purchased our tickets to come back all year if we wanted to revisit the park another time in 2019. From the orangutans to the lorikeets, the animals were a lot of fun to watch and take cute pictures of.

Sunday I spent sleeping…because my friend Maddie convinced me to go out with her on Saturday night! Let’s just say it’s a night for the books. We had a LOT of fun and a LOT of good stories to tell each other the next morning, haha.