I can't believe it has been 16 wonderful years since Colin and I went out on our very first date! What a smart decision it was for him to ask me out and me to say yes all those years ago! ;-) We try to celebrate each and every Valentine's together, in someway, and this year wasn't any different, although it was postponed a few days. Colin surprised me by buying us tickets to see Joe Nichols in concert at the Inn of the Mountain Gods! I love Joe Nichols and really had wanted to see him when he was there two years ago, but we weren't able to go at that time. He returned for another concert and my wonderful husband saw to it that I got to go. The concert was for the Friday after Valentine's Day and we were so looking forward to that and a night away in beautiful Ruidoso!
As if that wasn't enough, Colin also surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers on Valentine's morning:
I, also, did little but fun things for him the entire week of Valentine's (moderated from Pinterest ideas)! These are three of them:
Friday finally came, though, and the real celebration was beginning! First of all, thank you to Grammy and Grampa Mac for keeping the kids and dogs for us. We greatly appreciate it and the kids had a great time!
We left Friday morning around 10 and stopped at the western wear store in Alamogordo, where I finally found a pair of cowboy boots that I liked (that was Colin's birthday gift to me). When we arrived in Ruidoso, we ate lunch - our favorite margherita pizza at Cafe Rio! - and then looked around in the shops. After the shopping, we went and checked into our hotel (the Inn was booked, but he found a quaint little place to stay in Ruidoso Downs) and relaxed there for part of the afternoon. We then got ready and went to dinner at Ruidoso's newest restaurant - Grace O'Malley's Irish Pub. My friends and I had scoped it out back in November, right after it opened, and thought it looked like fun, and boy was it! It is a brand new building, and the architecture and decor is so nice! We ate delicious hot wings as an appetizer and then shared the fish and chips and everything was great! In fact, we liked it so much that we went back to hang out for a little while after the concert that night!
Speaking of the concert - it was amazing! We had great seats and Joe Nichols was a lot of fun and very intereactive with the crowd. He sang all my favorite songs of his; "Gimme that Girl", "What's a Guy Gotta Do", "Brokenheartsville", and of course, his most popular "Tequila Makes her Clothes Fall Off"! He also covered several classic country songs by Conway Twitty, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Junior and George Jones. It was so much fun and we agreed that if he comes back to Ruidoso, we are going back to see him!
Thank you so much to my romantic and wonderful husband who seems to love to spoil me, much to my delight! I thank God every day for him and look forward to the many,many more Valentine's Days we will share together!
Here are the only pictures I got of us on our romantic getaway and they were taken after breakfast Saturday morning, at our hotel:
I love you, Babe, and again...HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!
Over the long weekend, we took the kids and their new quad out to the desert to ride a bit. Colin and I are still looking for one for us and are hoping to find one by summer so we can use them together. For now, we are just letting them get used to it. Colton does well on it by himself. In fact, we actually had to tell him he could go a little faster!!
Cady didn't like being out in the desert (something about snakes?? Where, oh where does she get that from?!?!) but after convincing her it was still a little too chilly for them to be out and they couldn't get her on the 4-wheeler, she agreed to ride - but only with her Daddy!
We then stuck these into a card I made them by taking a picture with their arms outstretched like they were handing me something. Made it into a 3D Valentine! Yes- another idea from Pinterest!
Also from Pinterest, I got the idea to give Cady a special heart hairdo for her Valentine's party at school:
It was pretty easy and extremely cute! Not just a Valentine's hairdo, either!
These cute arrow place cards were another Pinterest idea:
I put this pretty centerpiece together using fake roses from Dollar Tree and Red Hots candy as the filler:
Cady, of course, had to get all fancy and dressed up. She looked beautiful!
For dessert, I made individual cakes-in-a-jar that are so popular on Pinterest right now, although they weren't as easy as they were made out to be! Still delicious, though, and very pretty to look at:
Me with my precious Valentines:
My other Valentine:
Our fancy and scrumptious dinner (King crab legs, shrimp, baked potato, asparagas, cucumbers and bread):
Both kids loved the crab legs:
Strawberry soda in our fancy glasses is a must for a special Valentine's dinner:
Cady enjoying her cake-in-a-jar:
It was a great evening celebrating all the LOVE in our family! We are so very blessed!