Valentine's Day

Last year for Valentine's Day, I was at school all day, followed by work, and thus had little time to do anything special for Travis above make him a handmade Valentine's card. Travis, on the other hand, had a little more free time that day, and used it to buy me 2 beautiful roses (for 2 Valentine's Day's together) and to decorate our apartment with balloons and love notes. He did everything I could have wished for, and I felt like my efforts totally paled in comparison.
I wanted this year to be different.
And for this Valentine's Day, our situations were completely opposite. (Important side note: this February 14th was Travis' grandmother's 80th birthday, and since we wanted to celebrate it by attending her party that day, we decided to do our own Valentine's celebrations a day early.) Whereas I had all day Valentine's Day and the days leading up to it to plan and prepare something special, Travis had school all Valentine's Day, and several tests to study for and take in the days leading up to it=no free time for him to plan or prepare. So, what was the story of this Valentine's Day?
Travis, being the sweetheart he is, woke up early on Friday (the only free time he had) to make a special shopping trip for my Valentine's gifts, and then made me breakfast in bed (of cornbread and yogurt, one of our favorite breakfasts)! As you can tell, I was very pleasantly surprised!
Here are my gifts from him: a card (that was so sweet it made me cry!), some chocolate (pb cups--some of my favorites), a little stuffed animal dog carrying a sign that says "Love ya this much!" (which is meaningful because that's something we often say to each other), and a Valentine's mug (which he knew I'd like for drinking hot chocolate).


What a sweet, thoughtful husband/valentine I have!

And for my Valentine, I used the free time I had while Travis was at school to plan and prepare our own little "night away (but) at home" by decorating our apartment and making a special dinner and card.

This was my card for Travis:

I put little love notes in each of the balloons...

...which he had to pop open to find...

...and then tape to his actual card.

And here was our special Valentine's dinner of lasagna (one of Travis' favorite dishes), garlic french bread, salad, and black cherry soda (hey, it looks fancy, right?), all eaten by candlelight:

And for dessert? Strawberry cheesecake (Travis' favorite):

It was all sooo yummy!

Then, for the rest of the evening, we re-created the experience of a night away in a themed hotel room--the details of which I will leave out, but the reality of which I will disclose was very relaxing and romantic. =) And in the end, we had a wonderful time because we got to just be together (and what better gift is there than that?).

The next morning, we celebrated Valentine's Day again (this time on the actual date) by having heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast (thanks Trav)! (We had to do something on the actual day, right?)

Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day too!