Our Anniversary

This Valentine's Day, we celebrated 14 years of marriage. If you've been following along, that's a big deal.

We didn't have a lot of cash to work with this year, but I still wanted to do something special for this man, who so graciously puts up with me day in and day out. So, I decided to get crafty, which is kind of my thing. I die cut, assembled, and embossed 14 little envelopes, which had 14 little love notes (simple messages of what I loved about him) in them. I then blew up 14 red and pink balloons (hello, light-headed) and waited for him to finally go to bed (he can be quite stubborn to remove from the couch sometimes). As soon as he went to bed, I taped the envelopes to his monitor, which is his second stop in the morning when he's getting ready for work. I then took the four-garbage-bags-full of balloons out to his truck and proceeded to fill the cab with love and orneriness, all while receiving interesting glances from the lady across the street (why are you up at midnight anyways, HUH?!). Tickled with myself, I went to bed. A few hours later, he came in to place a kiss on my forehead and tell me goodbye, just like he does every morning. He loved everything, but later admitted that he was slightly irked while driving with the balloons. Hey, he asks for these things. Ask me how I know.

When he got home, he offered to do school-pickup duty (many, much brownie points) and gave me a lovely figurine of a couple in love (can't wait to get our living room chaos under control so we can place it). After our friend/sitter picked up our boys, we got ready to go to dinner at our favorite local coffee shop. Twin Beans (if you're not familiar with them and are local, you MUST try them out) put together a fantastic Valentine's Day Dinner for a good price and we were lucky enough to snag a reservation. Our meal started with drinks (we opted for coffee...it had been a long day...I later regretted it) and an appetizer of hummus and their in-house focaccia bread. Then came a lovely pear, strawberry, and spinach salad with a poppyseed dressing. For the entree, Matt had prime rib and I had salmon, both with garlic mashed potatoes. Dessert was affogatos (espresso + ice cream = UH-MAZING). By the time we were done, I was ready to be rolled out to the car. It was a lovely meal and we thoroughly enjoyed our time together, chatting and laughing. We don't often get to go out on our actual anniversary, since everyone else has love in mind and flood every restaurant in town. So, it's always a major treat when it does happen. That's the downside of getting married on Valentine's Day and I don't recommend it.

The boys had a fun-filled day, as well. They both filled out Valentines and made mailboxes (Rob's tank was made for him last year, via Daddy, but he was sick and didn't get to use it). They then partied down at school all day, by exchanging said Valentines and eating way too much sugar (I'm so glad Matt went to pick them up). When they went with our friend during our date, they had the opportunity to watch a play rehearsal and all the inter-workings of all that entails. When they got bored with that, they ran up and down the halls with their friends like crazy people. They were quite tired when we picked them up, and our dinner went longer than we anticipated, so I requested a hooky day today. I think they really appreciated the downtime and sleeping in. I love our school situation.

So, that was our day! Nothing super fancy, but we got time together, which is always a plus. I just love hanging out with this guy.

As a side note (since this is my space to rant when and how I feel like it), I am frustrated to find a lot of shame flying around on Facebook today. It really let the air out of my balloon, so to speak. Trying not to let it bother me, but it does. If you choose not to "do gifts" with your significant other, please don't shame those who choose to do so. I'm not good with expressing my feelings, especially to those people nearest and dearest to me, so I choose to give/make gifts. Matt knows this and sees the intent behind it; I'm not trying to prove something or boast, even if I choose to post about it on social media. I'm simply sharing our day and saying, "Hey, I adore this man and this is how I told him so."  Maybe I'm taking it too personal, but I found it upsetting, nonetheless. If you feel "secure" enough in your relationship to skip those things, good for you. But my relationship definitely isn't "insecure" because we choose to give/make gifts. I don't really like the implication, there.

Rant over. Happy Valentine's Day!