Valentine's Day

I love Valentine's Day, I know a lot of girls don't...but I love it.  Let me rephrase that, I've loved Valentine's Day since I've had a Valentine.  It's the best, getting to be all lovey and mushy, and not even having to feel dumb for it!  So, I'm pretty sure some of you know the story of our first Valentine's Day together...but I'm going to tell it anyways. :)

Sean and I had just gotten engaged about a month before Valentine's Day (2008...yes, we're old).  I was really excited about THIS Valentine's Day because we were about to get married, so in love, you know... blah blah blah.  Two days before Valentine's Day Sean's car got broken into, and EVERYTHING he owned got stolen.  He was moving into his cousin Mark's house for a few months before we got married, and had left the car outside (in a nice, residential subdivision in Lehi) and someone had broken the window, and took everything this poor college student owned (ALL of his clothes, shoes, school books, printer, everything).  Unfortunately, Sean had left his wallet, checkbook, and his entire life in the car. (Remember when your entire life could fit into one car?  Crazy.)  So, we cancelled his debit/credit cards, etc. (this was the third time since we had been together/dating that Sean had to get cards replaced...that story is for another day). 

Anyways!  On Valentine's Day, Sean went to the bank to withdraw some cash to get some things for me, and the bank teller relayed to him that his account more than $2500 overdrawn. WWWWWWWWWWWWhat?!  Apparently the burglar tried to use the cards (they were declined)  so they wrote multiple fraudulent checks from Sean's account.  Sean just thought he had to cancel the cards, he didn't realize you had to freeze the entire checking account.  So, needless to say...Sean didn't get to withdraw any money that day.

This was a great start to our first Valentine's Day together.  Sean, feeling a little depressed, trudged on to the store to figure what he could get his future bride with the $2.50 he had in his wallet, haha.  He went to the grocery store and saw some caramel kisses (which he knew I loved, very sweet) and they were only $1.99 for a bag, victory.  He then realized he needed to get me some sort of flower.  After tax from the caramel kisses, he had about 25 cents left.  Everyone knows there is only one kind of flower you can get for 25 cents, the most hideous, cheapest, crappiest flower that exists....the carnation.  I HATE CARNATIONS.  Call me high maintenance, call me snobby, whatever you would like...but those flowers are the scum of the flower world.  Of course, Sean had no idea that I felt that way...haha.  And, even if he did know, that's all he could afford anyways.

At the time, I was in dental hygiene school.  That week we had our annual dental convention (ugh) which was in Salt Lake City, so I just had one of my friends drop me off in Lehi on the way back.  I was really excited to see what Sean had in store for our first Valentine's Day together.  When I got to Mark's house, Sean was clearly upset telling me about his day, so I couldn't even be disappointed. He had planned on taking us out to dinner, but clearly that wasn't going to happen!  I quickly suggested that we just go to store and get some groceries, and just make a nice dinner at the house.  I was a broke college student too, but I did have a positive account balance. :)  I know how crushed his pride was, and how stupid he felt, but I assured him that all we needed was each other, and that's all I wanted to do for Valentine's Day was be with him...my Valentine.  We quickly went to the grocery store, and tried to get something nice for our special night.  We decided on a salmon dinner, it was both of our first times making the dish, and it was delicious.  It ended up being a great night, and I loved every minute of it.

The best part of the story is when Sean bought the caramel kisses and carnation, he had accidentally broken the carnation on the way back from the store.  So, not only did he give me a single carnation, it was a BROKEN CARNATION.  Hahahahaha!  We honestly had to laugh to keep from crying.  Sean kept saying, one day...we're going to look back on our first Valentine's Day and laugh at all this.  Everytime he said that I wanted to stab him secretly, but I knew he was right.  And guess what?  After all these years, it is pretty funny, and pretty sweet, that my literally BROKE fiance would spend every last cent he had, just to try and make me feel special. 

Now, every Valentine's Day we spend at home together and make a delicious, salmon dinner.  I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

 Sean surprised me at work with some GORGEOUS flowers.  The only thing better than getting flowers on Valentine's Day, is having your Valentine bring them in person!

He always brings me a broken carnation too, just to try and make me laugh.  :)

Not only was Sean sweet enough to bring me flowers on Vday, but he brought the other girls in the office flowers too because he didn't want them to feel left out.  Sweetest husband award ever?  I think so.  

Another sweet bonus, when I was having lunch with my little brother I went to go pay for our pop, and the cashier said, "Happy Valentine's Day, the soda's on us!"  Sawweeeet!

We had a nice candle-lit dinner that evening.

We even busted out our fancy glasses!

 Present time!  Sean never has a shirt on, and only gets shy when I'm taking pictures of him in his garments, but doesn't cover up when people come over...who knows?

Haha, and I believe his exact words after I gave him the card from me were, "Oh crap, I forgot to get a card."

 This is the "nice work" look I get when he really likes the present I've gotten him.  He LOVES the Kobe shorts that Aunt Elaine and Uncle Mark got him, and so I got him some Lebron shorts.  He now has two favorite shorts to rotate between.  Valentine's Day present, success! 

T-shirts...fail.  They were just a LITTLE small...womp, womp.

And last but not least, a new Puma hoodie.  I realized that the reason he steals all my over-sized hoodies (then proceeds to lose/trash them) is because he doesn't have any of his own.  He only has zip-up hoodies!  Apparently, that's one thing that never got replaced after all his clothes were stolen. 

Vday Present bonus:
I got all of his presents from less than $50, yes it's true...sometimes I can be a savvy shopper.

 Sean got me a new scarf, he clearly knows I can never have too many of those!

 He also got me some new stud earrings.  I can really only wear studs to work, everything else just gets caught around my mask.  So I'm always looking for some more!  He's always nervous about buying me presents, but he did a great job!

We spent the rest of the night relaxing and just spending time together.  It was wonderful!  And Sean was right, NOW our first Valentine's Day together is funny, and we can sit back and laugh about when we were so poor and all we had was each other.  I'm so grateful for those times we've had, it truly taught us to rely on one another, and it a weird way it helped us grow.  But, I'm glad we're past that point, and can finally laugh about it!

This is on a completely different topic, one of my friends sent me this around Lent...and I thought it was too funny not to share!  My boss is Catholic, and so are a bunch of the girls I work with, so they were talking about Lent a lot, and we all got a good kick of this. :)