Paisley

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Valentines Day


So it's cool that I'm finally blogging about Valentines day about, oh, you know a half month after the fact? Well, I want to document it so i can remember it forever and ever! DUH!

Anyway. Here is our Valentines Day story -- 2012.

Oh my oh my was I a lucky girl when I discovered that I would be working in Lexington during the week of Valentines day. As soon as I found out I knew where we needed to have Valentines Day reservations.

3 Suns Bistro in Brannon Crossing.

Why this place? well about 4 years ago this is where Michael and I went on our first ever Valentines Day date. We had been dating for only a week and he took me out for a pretty fancy meal. Spoiled? I realize this.

I knew it would be meaningful to me and hopefully Michael especially since #1 we are highly likely to be moving away in the next couple of months for Michael's residency and #2 Michael and I have issues with restaurants that are important to us closing.

Exhibit A: Buddies Bar and Grill on Tates Creek/High Street - This is where Michael and I went on our very first real date (you know if you don't count fazolis, which I don't!). A few months ago the place went out of business. sad, sad day.

Exhibit B: Murrays Restaurant on Harrodsburg Road - This is where Michael and I ate dinner before he took me back to his house (now our house) to propose. Michael used to work here too. It's a fancy restaurant like Malones where basketball coaches and the like ate. They shut down about a year or more ago. Even sadder day.

Both restaurants were VERY good. Never really had a bad experience there, but now they are gone :(.

Back to the Valentines day story.

Anywho, so I knew we had to hit up one of the few remaining influential restaurants still surviving.  I called and made a reservation about 3 weeks in advance to make sure! i'm a planner!

Also, I wanted to make our Valentines day gifts special this year. So I devised a plan that I got the idea from Pinterest on. It wasn't going to be expensive, just time consuming. I call it "Gifts on the hour"

A week or 2 before Valentines day I started collecting small, random, unique, or useful gifts for Michael. Nothing costing more than $8 or so a piece.

Once I collected about 12 items it was time to set my plan in motion. I selected random times throughout Valentines day that ended up being signifcant to our relationship:
- 6:26 pm (wedding anniversary)
-4:01 pm (Willis' birthday)
-2:08 pm (dating anniversary)
-10:26 am (MIchael's birthday
etc, etc.

I did have to fudge 1 or 2 hours because I was trying to get them to be hourly from about 8 am until 10 pm.

Each gift I wrapped separately and attached a time stamp for when to open and a little note about the gift. I hid everything in the closet and told Michael if he went in there I would seriously hurt him. Cause I'm loving like that! :)

Valentines day approached as I frantically wrapped and finished things up the night before to ensure the perfect giving. Valentines morning Michael woke up with me (he had to be into the hospital an hour later than I did for work) and we headed to Magees (a local bakery) for breakfast to use a Groupon that was expiring on that day.

Michael got a yummy egg and bagel sandwich while I munched on a delicious pumpkin muffin. We chatted and it was wonderful to spend time together before we went our separate ways and started our busy days. As we were saying goodbye I ran to my car and pulled out a card and a brown paper sack. The note told Michael where to look once he got home and addressed the rules of the gift game. In the brown sack I gave him our camera to document everything since I'd miss a good part of it. He was confused but I think he thought the idea was cool.

Sadly though and to my great disappoint he didn't have time to go home after breakfast. I pouted, saying my hard work wasn't going to workout right. Luckily he only missed about 3 gifts and headed home. So he just opened them all at once!

I would get random texts throughout the day and pictures of him with some of the gifts. It made me smile. Here are a few with some explanation:
After coming back from our honeymoon Michael used my toothbrush by mistake. Silly gift! :)

When in Louisville for Michael's marathon we tried on crazy sunglasses at Lynn's Paradise Cafe

This is silly, acting like socks are mittens! :)

This is the gum Michael ALWAYS chewed when we were dating, the smell of it brings back great feelings.
Willis smelling the "bouquet" of tootsie roll pops. I mean a guy deserves a bouquet of something too! Carson is so jealous in the background!

fazoli's giftcard.... no awkwardness about who is going to pay... i had it this time :)

A canvas with the words to our first dance song on it...didn't turn out as nice as I'd hoped though :(

Since it is busy season I worked until around 7 and headed home to get all fancied up. I couldn't wait to talk to Michael about my gifts and get ready for our dinner (which the location I kept secret from Michael).

I arrived home to see a BOUNTY of Valentines day gifts. I was like woah! He went super way overboard. It was intense. I felt SO very much spoiled.

Look at this, I mean it's crazy!:



I have been talking about wanting a toaster oven forever, our ghetto $10 toaster just doesn't do it sometimes. He also gave me socks, cause he complains about how dirty and nasty mine are. I don't even know how it happens. Its not like i walk around outside shoeless. Crazy. He also bought 2 bottles of wine and a bottle of dark malibu since I was finishing up the bottle I received for my 21st birthday! Oh and he also got my CHOCOLATES! I have never received chocolates before and was so excited about this!! And lastly....boot polish. Cause my boots needed it, it's true! So super random assortment all so wonderful!

Once Michael and I got all fancy I handed him a gift that I had timed for him to open before we got in the car. It was a CD "mix tape" of songs that were important to us, I even put a picture of us on the case. I have NEVER made him a CD before, I felt like I was in 8th grade. It was awesome. Unfortunately Michael's CD player in the car only likes to play to about song 5 on the CD. BUMMER.

Once we got in the car I gave him another gift. He, still unknowing as to where he was driving  me, unwrapped the gift to find a picture frame with a picture of a map and the 3 Sun's Bistro logo on it. So now he knew where to drive me!

Now is the unfortunate part of the night, slightly disappointing. We arrived at the restaurant at 8, our reservation time, and had to wait about 20 minutes for our table. Even though there were about 4 empty tables. The place was VERY understaffed and VERY unorganized. It kind of made me feel bad for them. However, the only accordion player in the city of Lexington was playin' away in his sparkly shirt. He was a very sweet man!

 Once we finally got seated it took us FOREVER to get any service. Michael and I were polite, but also starving. We didn't receive bread or anything until about 8:45 and our food at 9-9:15ish. 2 other couples at different tables got up and left after they had ordered because the service was terrible. It was like I was foreseeing the future of 3 Sun's. Oh restaurant. Please don't fail!
We still took pictures of ourselves though while waiting:


Our food was mediocre. But we enjoyed each others company and had a great time. I know many of you are Valentines Day haters, but you know what, I enjoy showering my spouse with love. (it's not like I don't regularly, but its just another day that you can make extra special!)


So there's that....my long Valentines day story!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Thankful Thursday!


Despite a pretty tiring workday today (worked from 8:15am to 7:45pm at the client) and a icky run at 5:45 am this morning I can say to sum it up that I can find wonderful things in my day. And the optimism continues.

Maybe my optimism can be somewhat annoying, but on days when we are working 12 hours I think it is a way better option than being a negative Nancy.

Things that made my day:

1.     Let start with the big one, cause you know it really was pretty awesome. Today I became an AUNT! Isn’t that weird sounding? No, none of my siblings had a child, Michael’s oldest sister Jennifer did! She was a week late with no symptoms still so they induced her on Tuesday hoping to have a child by Wednesday, which also happened to be Leap day! Well after hours of waiting – almost 48 – Baby Antoine entered the world on March 1st around 5am (Seattle time of course). What a great way to start the day. I nearly shrieked with joy when I received this pictures of little Antoine:

2.     An employee at our client, who dresses cute and such complimented me on my shoes today. It made me feel good. You can’t bring me down work!

3.     I was able to run 5 miles before my work day even began. Yes the run felt AWFUL, which I blame on mozzarella sticks, French fries, and mcDonald’s hot fudge sundae (I hadn’t had ice cream all week and was really craving it guys, how bad!) that I had consumed the night before at dinner. But you know what, I’m glad I got a significant run in during the middle of the week! (i am so sweaty and gross and look like death warmed over):

4.     I am 75% through my “February” book. I am counting this as keeping up with my resolution. I sure hope you accept this. Still enjoying Mindy Kaling’s book, I read it on the touch pad during our 30 minute drive to the client and in the hotel room at night before bed.

5.     My fortune cookie from the Chinese Buffet we had for lunch today was actually a fortune for once. And you didn’t even need to add the usual “in bed” at the end, it was sort of implied! :)

6.     Um hello guys. The sun. it’s shining. Like crazy. And it’s so warm. My lunch break rides in the car to lunch are spent smiling and gabbing about how much I am loving this.

7.     And it wouldn’t be an Ashley post without some dogs. Loving that I have an awesome hubby that knows I can’t get through a week without some pictures of my pups!




8.     I’m about to go out to eat pizza with coworkers and watch UK. Michael is at the game and it’s Senior Night! I love me some Darius and Eloy! Go Cats!