Our Valentine Weekend

Jesse and I had a wonderful Valentine's Day this year. It's about time! We spent our first Valentine's Day in the emergency room when Jesse had a fever of 104*, and then last year, we were both either at work, or in classes or meetings until nearly midnight, after which we weren't allowed to be in each other's rooms because of "privacy hours!" I was determined to set our first married Valentine's Day on the right foot.

Jesse was gone at a DCE Midyear Retreat from Wednesday thru Friday last week, so I took the opportunity to go down to San Diego to visit my friend Emily (I'll work on writing about that on my own blog) I had a wonderful time with Em (my friend of 17 years!) and Jesse was refreshed by getting to be with all his friends from his DCE graduating class, swap stories and share ideas.

Since I dropped Jesse off on Wednesday and took the car down to San Diego with me, I got to pick him up in Irvine on Friday. I arrived in Irvine just in time to join all the DCEs for dinner at Steelhead (which I'd never been to before but is a brewery much like BJ's).It was so good to be near him again! It was hard to resist the urge to cover him with kisses at the table!

We hadn't planned anything in advance for celebrating Valentine's Day together. I'm against any restaurant that jacks its prices $30-60 just for a holiday, so we had talked about putting together a picnic basket and taking it to the park or something (great plans when the weather forecast rain all weekend!)

Little did he know...

Before I drove to Steelhead, I popped into a Cheesecake Factory in Irvine and picked up our favorite cheesecake. Then I drove to the Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach and set up the room I had booked days ago with cheesecake, wine, candles, and a basket of gifts. (Don't worry, I didn't spend an exorbitant amount! There was some huge deal going on last week, and I got a great bargain).

Here is our beautiful room!




My valentine basket for Jesse full of corny gifts/notes (Hershey's Kisses with a tag that said "I love your kisses," Fruit Gushers "you make me gush," Moon Sand--like playdoh--that said "you're outta this world!" etc)




Wine and cheesecake!



Jesse was so surprised! It worked out perfectly, actually. While we were at Steelhead for dinner, I whispered that I had special dessert reservations at a nice place at 7:45 (totally the truth!). I drove there, and he was so engrossed in telling me everything that he had done that week that he had no clue where we were until I pulled up and a valet opened his car door! That was when I handed him our room key too. It was perfect!






Actual Valentine's Day was pretty perfect, too. We slept in since we had stayed up late enjoying the pool/spa that was on our floor, and then when we woke up, we checked out and headed to Corona Del Mar.

Corona Del Mar has been our favorite beach forever (ok, except for the one Jesse first asked me to date him and then proposed to me at!). We went there all the time while we were at Concordia. I loved going because I reeeeeeeeeeally miss living near the beach, and Jesse was always happy to take me there because it made me happy. If I took the time, I could probably find 15+ pictures of us there over the past 2 years, but Lost is on in a little bit, and I don't want to miss it :) Anyway, here are pictures of our Valentine's Day at the beach!


On the way to the beach, we stopped by our old haunt, Bruegger's Bagels and bought bagels and smoothies to take with us to the shore. We sat up here on this bench to enjoy the view with our breakfast before going down to the water.




Gorgeous Day!




Happy feet :)



Ok, and this has nothing to do with our romantic weekend, but it cracked me up and I had to share it! Jesse and I were relaxing on the sand, and this guy in a wetsuit walks by with his dog. As we talked to him, we found out that he doesn't surf, he just loves his dog, and his dog loves the water. "But it's too cold for me," the man told us, "so this is our compromise!" I really thought that it was funny that he would go through the effort of walking around in a wetsuit just so he could follow the rules and keep his dog on a leash while letting his dog surf the waves! Talk about devotion...


We enjoyed laying out on the sand, and also walking along the jetti. It was such a beautiful day (forget the weatherman!), things couldn't have been more wonderful.

So happy, so in love!