The Unexpected Valentine's Day
Matt and I had a Valentine's Day that was FULL of surprises. Initially, I thought this year was going to be low key since we have a 4 month old daughter. But, my husband surprised me and got my parents to babysit our munchkin crew so we could go out and celebrate together. It was completely unprompted by me and it meant so much that he thought to do that. He picked me up at 5:30pm and told me we had two destinations that evening: a reservation for 5:45pm was the first and a surprise one for 7:00pm was the second. The first stop was an Italian restaurant, Femmina Italian Grill. It was adorable and had the cutest atmosphere that was perfect for a date night. We were, in true Storm fashion, 15 minutes late for our reservation because we had to stop and get a couple of bottles of wine (BYOB) but they seated us without a problem. The food was absolutely amazing and the portions were gigantic. For appetizers we got calamari and bacon wrapped scallops. There were breads upon breads upon breads brought to the table which I, of course, only ate one slice of.... maybe two.... ok maybe more like two loaves. Carbs don't count on Valentine's Day, right? For dinner I ordered the Ahi Tuna and Matt got a seafood ravioli.
We were stuffed and just starting the salad course when I unexpectedly got a call from my mom who was watching our kids. She has never called me a single time that she has been watching our children in 4 years. So naturally, I went into sheer panic mode and grabbed my phone faster than I ever have before almost knocking all the bottles of wine off the table in the process. The wine was ok, as were the kids, but my mom was the one who needed assistance. She had taken a tumble and needed to go to the E.R. because she is on a blood thinner (she was fine but they just needed to double check). And, with one swift call that ended our date night rather quickly since we had to hustle back to get to our kids so she could leave. The restaurant completely understood our predicament and we got our check and our food wrapped up to go very swiftly. In hindsight it was probably good because I don't think either of us could have eaten anymore while we were sitting there.
Unfortunately, we had to cancel our second event for the evening which my husband informed me was bowling. Now, you have to understand, I have been wanting Matt to take me bowling for 6 years. I am not joking. This seems like something that is easy enough for couples to do, but when you have a boat load of children and you finally get a night out, there is a high chance that one of you might not want to spend that time bowling. That someone is Matt. And it has been going on 6 years now that I have not been able to convince him any night we have gone out to bowl with me. So, I was SUPER excited once I found out what the plan was and then cried in a pit of misery when I found out we could not go. I am forever cursed to never get to bowl with my husband.
We made it back to our house from Femmina in ten minutes flat. My mom was able to go (everything came back a-okay for her) and we entered parent mode. We got the kids fed, bathed, dressed and then sent the two oldest off to bed. Our Miss Madeline got to finish date night with Mom and Dad on the couch. We cracked open the second bottle of wine, ate out of our takeout containers, and splurged to rent a movie, American Made with Tom Cruise. It was surprisingly good.
While this was definitely not the night that either of us had in mind, it was still absolutely perfect (more so because my mom was okay too). We got to spend time with each other which is what we both just really wanted. My favorite part of my relationship with my husband is that we are very apt to just roll with the punches. Our life has been absolutely crazy over these last few years but it has never negatively impacted our relationship.
We didn't get our perfect date night picture in our nice outfits, but here we are, just two goofballs sitting in our lounge-ware on the couch, teeth and lips stained in red wine, eating out of our fancy take out containers, and blissfully happy. We did use real silverware and not plasticware so there's that at least.
I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day and one that was much less eventful than ours. And, if it wasn't exactly as you pictured I hope you were still able to find some good in it.
