Yay! I love Valentines Day, partly because I love beautiful fresh flowers and I’m always pretty sure to not have to buy them for myself (this week!) Dave is always great at planning special things for me, so this year I told him that I was going to be in charge of the night. I was a total stress case for my lack of time to organize and carry out my plan, but it ended up being a nice, relaxing way to spend some much needed time together.

I told Dave to dress up and then I blind folded him for the 25 minute car ride up to my dad’s hanger. I had spent the afternoon cleaning, setting up a nice table with dishes and stemware, readying the DVD player with the evening’s selection and placing candles everywhere. The disclaimer for the whole date is that Dave loves opera! I’m sure you’re thinking that I’m the culprit, but really, he is fascinated by it, so the theme of the night was “Il’ Elisir d’Amore” (the love potion) which is the title of a famous Italian opera.

We enjoyed Italian take-out and Dave read the page that I had bookmarked in his new “100 Classic Operas” book. Of course it was the plot for “Il Elisir d’Amore” What celebration is complete without a toast (of love potion…cheesy, I know)?

I had set little movie treat bags at each place setting. They were complete with a little movie ticket. It took Dave until I started the DVD to realize that we actually were going to watch the opera! Turns out most opera videos were made in the 60’s-80’s, so it was very classic…black and white, semi-home video style cinematography. Awesome! The music ended up being amazing, and even though we had read the plot we watched it with English subtitles. One day we’ll learn Italian and get to have the true experience.

So, all in all we had an awesome night. It is always nice to take a few moments out of our busy lives to reaffirm our commitment to each other and celebrate the happiness that we’ve found in love.
Hooray for V-Day!