Cutest Wife Ever

First off, it is really kind of depressing how little Valentine's Day is thought of in the corporate world. Besides the "What are you doing for Valentine's Day?" questions, there is nothing. No one wears red. There are no sweetheart candies or chocolates. No heart decorations.

Now I know a lot of people aren't huge fans of Valentine's Day. And I realize most of the things I just mentioned are the really commercialized parts of Valentine's Day. Maybe I'm just missing the parties we used to have in elementary school and the decorated lockers in middle and high school. It just used to be just a big deal and now it's not.

Dylan and I decided we weren't really going to do anything for Valentine's Day since we are going to Italy in May (still have to book our trip, but we are refinancing so after next week I'll be able to book it) and want to save our money for that.

Then I remembered it is our first married Valentine's Day, so I wanted to do something. I also used to be really good at finding little things to send care packages to Dylan when we were living long distance and I missed doing those little surprises.

I had a thought to go buy Thor on Blu-ray since Dylan is all about the Avengers and I figured to really be a fan he had to own the movies. Then since it is Valentine's Day I figured I'd probably get him some chocolate too. To make it even more of a surprise I wanted my dad to deliver it to Dylan's work since they work about 2 minutes apart.

I came up with this plan the week before Valentine's Day. Then I just never had a chance to make it work! I never drove myself anywhere over the weekend so I couldn't just stop by the store on my way back. Monday night rolled around and I was running at the gym with Dylan thinking "How can I make this work?!"

So I decided I would sneak out of my own house in the middle of the night.

That night I set an alarm to go off at 12:30am and hoped that I would wake up before. I woke up at 11:45 and got dressed from the clothes I had "laid out" by hiding in easy spots in the closet. After getting dressed in the dark I went downstairs. I was shaking from nervousness at being caught or making too much noise and probably a little bit of excitement.

Then Ares started barking at me from the family room. CRAP! (He's a good guard dog, warning future kids!) I had thought he was upstairs. I hoped Dylan didn't wake up but figured he had and then heard me calm Ares down and would have gone back to sleep. I continued on and grabbed my purse, opened the garage door (which is conveniently located on the opposite side of the house from the master bedroom, thank goodness!) and drove over to the Walmart by my parents house.

There were actually quite a few people for it being midnight. I grabbed the movie, chocolate (good chocolate, Ghirardelli dark with chili) and the gift bag, paper and card.

I signed the card in the Walmart parking lot (cute card and cute message if I do say so myself):

Then I drove over to my parents house, it was like 12:30 by this point and called them to let them know I was going to open their garage (they also have dogs that would wake them up) and I dropped the present off in my dad's car. All set!

Picture taken at home after the fact, there was no thought of photographs at 12:30am!

Then I drove back home, crawled into bed and went to sleep.

In the morning while walking the dogs, Dylan and I always ask how we slept and I said good but I went downstairs to get a glass of water and Ares barked. Dylan said he didn't hear it. So I made up a whole lie for nothing!

Then Dylan got in the car to drive me to light rail and him to work and he had to slightly adjust the rear view mirror (we drive one car right now and I had set everything back as close as I could) and I was afraid he might mention something but he didn't.

Then at about 10:30am I got an email from Dylan titled "Cutest wife ever" and he was so excited about the surprise!

When I finally had a chance to tell him the whole story he was so surprised at the effort I put in and gave me even more kisses.

Good first married Valentine's Day self! Dylan also had a little surprise for another post!