Pencil in a day to be Romantic?

I have never been a fan of being told that you have to be romantic just because it’s February 14th.  So for the other 364 days of the year you can be a schmuck?  Please don’t buy me flowers because it’s expected.  Yeah, that’s romantic.  Nothing says love like a dozen roses that you ordered at the last minute and paid five times the regular price for.  I am being honest when I say that Valentine’s Day could come and go and not be acknowledged and I would be perfectly happy.  (Note: this doesn’t give my husband an out for not buying me flowers or being romantic any other day of the year!)

Seven years ago today, Scott started a tradition in our relationship, although he didn’t exactly know it at the time.

This was the day we got engaged.  Scott took me on a surprise weekend to McCloud, CA and we rode the Mt. Shasta Dinner Train.  We would be married six months later.

The next Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be fun if I planned a weekend away but didn’t tell Scott where we were going. We went to Bend and went on a moonlight snowshoeing adventure.

Not wanting to break our new tradition, Scott planned the next year. We went to Brookings, via the Redwoods.

The next year was my turn. We spent the weekend in San Francisco.

Not to be outdone, Scott put a lot of thought into planning our next trip. We took the ferry to Victoria, BC.

It was back to me to plan our fifth romantic weekend away.  I thought it would be fun to go back to McCloud and ride the dinner train again.  I had heard that the train was going to stop running and I thought it would be fun to ride it one last time.  Two days before Valentine’s Day, the train people called to say they had too much snow and the train was not going to go.  Weekend cancel, not to be rescheduled.

Last year, before any planning could take place, we were invited to go to Idaho for a couple’s weekend/girls fishing trip.  Scott jumped at that so last year we went to Idaho.

I don’t know if we will get back to planning our romantic surprise Valentine’s weekends now that we have started our Idaho fishing weekends.  One thing is for sure, surprise weekends or not, my husband will always be my Valentine!