Valentine's Celebrations

My husband tries really hard. He does. You never know what he is going to come up with at any holiday. This year, he said he made plans for us to go out last Friday night to celebrate Valentine's Day. I tried to get information out of him, but he likes to keep things a surprise, but I know how his surprises usually end up, and was trying to help him out. You'll see...

THE GOOD:

My husband knows I don't want flowers or candy for Valentine's Day. I like thoughtful gifts, and being able to tell that a little thought was put into my gift. Well, in the middle of day on Friday, the doorbell rings, and the Fed Ex guy had dropped off a box on my door step:

That was a fun surprise!

Then, that night, John had gotten a baby sitter and we went to dinner at a very nice restaurant, that I'd never been to, which I always love. We had a great dinner, and were seated by a large window, and it started to snow while we were there, which was really pretty.

THE BAD (THE FUNNY):

Then, we head to the next part of the surprise. "Where are we going?" I would ask. "You'll just have to wait and see," John would say. We then pulled into a parking lot of a very large Methodist church. "Please tell me this isn't the surprise," I said. John just smiled. "No, seriously, I'm not going in there until you tell me what we are doing first." (I never claimed I wasn't stubborn) "It's a surprise," he said, "don't you trust me?" "No," I replied, "your track record says I shouldn't." (I brought up a few specifics to make my point... which he could only laugh at. Though to his credit there have been some good surprises too.)

I walk with him (I might add, unwillingly) into the church, trying to see what we were headed into. I saw a sign to celebrate the opening of a youth center, and another sign for a dance, and didn't know to which we were headed. Then, John goes to an old man sitting at a table covered in tickets. "Is this where the sex class is?" I thought I heard him say (mumble). "What?!?!" the voice in my head exclaimed. A second later, I figured out he'd said, saxaphone concert. "My husband brought me to a saxaphone concert to celebrate Valentine's Day??" the voice in my head spoke up again.

We walk into the concert, and I turned to John, "You bought me to a saxaphone concert????" I was not thrilled, to say the least. "There's going to be people dancing the tango," he replied, "you'll like that." I sat down, not very happy, and listened to the lady introduce the group. I then looked over at the program in John's hand, and a light went on. "John, they are going to be playing tango music, not dancing the tango." He didn't believe me. Then I saw that the name of one of the saxaphone quartets had the word, 'tango', in their name, and pointed that out to him as well. I slouched down in my seat, a little annoyed, as John searched the program to find out when the people dancing the tango were going to come on. One song ended, and I leaned over to him and said, "I'm around noise all day, and you bought me here to more noise?" He was just smiling into his program. I was getting more annoyed. "I'm ready to go," I said.

We left after the second piece was over. As we walked out of the church into the falling snow, I said to John, "I can't believe you brought me to a saxaphone concert. A billion things I would love to do tonight, and you bought me to a saxaphone concert." He replied, "I thought you would like a little culture." "Then you should have taken me to see Wicked." I'm sure I follwed that statement up with a good eye roll, and a classic Holly sigh/hiss. "I thought there were going to be people dancing, like Dancing with the Stars, and you would have liked that," he said. "Then, you need to read information more carefully," I said. And, I might have mentioned something about that the money he spent on the tickets I could have gone shopping with instead... I guess a saxaphone concert just wasn't what I expected.

That night when we got in bed, I couldn't stop laughing at the evening. "You took me to a saxaphone concert..." I kept repeating and laughing. Poor John.

BACK TO GOOD:

We continued our celebrations the next day with some car shopping, maternity shopping, and lunch out at a FABULOUS new restaurant. The restaurant is an hour away, and we will so make that drive again to go there. (unfortunately it is not a chain, or I would reccomend you go to one in your area) We had this brie, bacon, and apple dip with yogurt crackers for an appetizer, and it was so good, Mallary kept taking it away from us so she could eat it. The restaurant makes all of their food there, fresh, nothing made from frozen foods. Homemade pasta, delicious bread, knock your socks of desserts, and even truffles!!! Oh, it was so good. (Can you tell I have a thing for food?)

Then yesterday, we celebrated again with a home made Valentine's dinner. See what we made and get the recipes, HERE.

All in all, I think we got our fair share of celebrating in, and our fair share of laughs as well. Good times.