Once Upon a Valentine's Day

I had previously done my Valentine's Day for Rob (check out part one and part two here) last weekend, so now on Valentine's Day it was his turn. He had told me he was planning something but refused to tell me what it is. It was one of his best kept secrets. Remember how I mentioned how I really wanted to tell Rob about my plan and gift, well he doesn't always do so well not telling me things either. That's probably just because I pester him until he tells, but still. I tried my pestering route, but with no success. So I resigned that he was really going to be tight-lipped about this.

So yesterday when I got home, there were flowers and a note waiting for me on the table. I'm going to take a moment here to say that he did amazing with the flowers. I'm not a rose fan. I have never really liked roses. Just my personal preference, but I do love lilies. Which begs the question: Why didn't I choose lilies for our wedding? Rob actually asked me that at one point. I found a picture I liked on pinterest of bouquets of gerbs, so that's what I wanted to go with. It was simpler. And I did truly love my wedding flowers. That's basically the gist of it. But if I'm going to be receiving flowers then I want lilies. They are definitely my favorite. So waiting for me a beautiful bouquet of lilies and tulips. And it smells a-m-a-z-i-n-g!

And in the note, he mentioned to go look at the bathroom mirror. We write our to-do list on the bathroom mirror. He has one side and I have the other. It seems a little silly but we go into the bathroom multiple times over the course of a day, so it's actually the perfect place to write a to-do list. Well, he added something to my to-do list.

So I'm definitely intrigued now. Between that and the fact that he wrote in the note that he was going to whisk me away tonight.  And from all that I deduced that I was not going to be sleeping in my own bed that night. (With those kind of deduction skills, I am definitely a genius). I was excited - two reason: 1) This was something different that we hadn't done before, just pack an overnight and go somewhere else. 2) I really needed to get away from our apartment. Oh, it has it's good aspects, but I needed a break.

So I was pretty excited to see what Rob had planned. Like instructed I packed my overnight bag, but I had no idea what to pack for. I didn't know if I would have time back home in the morning before work so I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed if I had to go straight to work. And since it was only one day, it was light-packing. So I packed and waited.

At five, Rob walks in the door with his hands behind his back. I noticed. I'm not sure if he was hoping I wouldn't, but I did. He heads out the hall quickly and I finish getting ready to go out. By this point, I know we're going out to eat and we're eating Carrabba's. That wasn't a great surprise because that is our favorite restaurant - well, okay I'm not sure it's his but it's definitely mine.

I was filling up Stella's water and food in the bathroom when Rob comes in. He hands me this card, which describes him so perfectly. I was fairly certain this card was written for him specifically. Then he gives me a ring pop and asks me to be his valentine. I bet you can guess my answer.

So with overnight bags in tow and the flowers safely tucked away because Stella had already tried to eat them once, we headed to Carrabba's. And we were pretty pleased with only the 20 or so minute wait. We were seated and had a very nice, friendly waitress. Don't worry I'm not going to walk you through every step of our dinner. But we did have a good dinner. But has there ever really been a bad dinner at Carrabba's? Is that even possible?

We left and this is when the mystery really begun. He had me close my eyes, so I didn't have a clue where we were going. After a fairly short drive, I was allow to open my eyes and I could see a car dealership. Yeah, no, we did not buy another car. That would be pretty dang silly. We love our current cars. But I turn around and there was a hotel behind us. We were getting away from our world for the night. We go inside to check in, which we were fairly certain the guy at the desk thought we were having an affair because we live in Olathe and we're staying at an Olathe hotel. Questionable.

We go down the hall, literally like two doors and get to our suite. Yes, not just a room but a suite. And it was nice. Really nice. I was told to stay with the couch and TV on one side of the wall while Rob worked on something on the other side by the bed (and second TV). Yeah, this room had two very nice TVs. Finally he let me come around and he had a huge poster of our view from the cottage we stayed in at Kennebunkport (our honeymoon). He put it up over the window, and suddenly our view was amazing all over again.

So it might not seem like much to you, but it was to me. We got away - even if it was in our own city, but seriously there's only so much you can do on a weeknight.  He brought Kennebunkport to us. And it was just us. We even had the luxury of no cat. Although Stella was pretty whinny when I got back home this morning (I just dropped Rob off at Garmin because we were pretty much just around the corner from Garmin).

Needless to say, the hubs did good. He did really good. We had a great Valentine's Day together. I guess we can consider our Valentine's Day 2012 as a success for both of us.