Happy Valentine's Day: A Recap

Our Valentine story begins in 2008. I was in my last year at University of Michigan, and Chris was finishing up his Masters at Cornell. Lucky for me, Chris was amazing through the whole long distance thing and had flown out to be with my for Valentine's Day. Little did we know that only a couple days after we celebrated, my appendix would rupture and I'd spend the next week in the hospital.

But at least we had a good first Valentine's Day together.

Valentine's Day 2008.

The next year, we were less lucky. We were living in our first apartment, eating breakfast and talking about our plans for the day. It was a Sunday I think. And then we noticed a rather unfortunate sittuation unfolding: our cat Oreo had worms ... coming out of him ... I won't go into more detail than that, but believe me when I say we were freaked out.

Being a weekend, the regular vet wouldn't see us, so we spent most of the morning calling around to find a vet  that would. We eventually found the emergency vet and had to rush him in. Awesome. We spent most of the rest of the day there. Long story short, we had him checked out and got some medicine to make him all better. (It worked and he's as healthy as a horse now). But after that, our plans were pretty much shot so we spent a quiet evening in, constantly checking on the cat to make sure he was ok.

Next up, Valentine's 2010. Now that was a good year.

We went out to eat at a nice restaurant. Chris bought me some beautiful flowers and a huge frosted chocolate chip cookie. I finally had a job and a savings account, so I splurged and bought him a new GPS that he desperately needed and wanted. All was well.

Valentine's Day 2010.

I honestly have no recollection of V-day 2011. Chris and I believe we may have gone out to eat at Lemongrass, though we're not totally sure. But regardless, it was uneventful, and that's a good thing, as you're slowly finding out.

Valentine's Day 2012 was the mother of bad Valentines. I stopped at a bakery to get some sweets for Chris and he went and picked up sushi and flowers and came home to find the back door wide open and Oreo out in the driveway. Yup. Someone broke into our house on Valentine's Day while we were at work. Possibly the worst  part of that whole ordeal was that after we gave our report to the police and they snapped pictures and dusted for prints and all that, we thought that our terrified cat, Shadow had gotten outside as well. We looked everywhere and couldn't find him. We were so upset that whole night and for a days later.

The good news is that he is just unbelievable at hiding and reappeared in my desk chair a few days later. Poor thing! But our celebration was already totally ruined at that point.



Shadow in one of his slightly less obvious hiding places, the top of the closet.

And that brings us to the present. Valentine's 2013. Lucky thirteen.

Yeah ... Exactly one week before Vday I had to rush Chris to the Emergency room for severe stomach pains and other complications. He felt awful. We spent several hours there while he got tested and prodded and poked. Around 1am the doctor said he had a case of colitis. So they admitted him to the hospital and kept him on pain killers until later the next day.

We spent the weekend napping and Chris eating toast and not much else. He couldn't eat any spicy food, anything greasy or sugary. No vegetables, no fruits, no whole grains. Basically, toast, crackers, and chicken noodle soup. Over the next couple days, he stuck to his diet while he started to heal up. But it was obvious that Valentine's Day would again be a bust this year.

Luckily, Chris actually felt ok on Thursday and I brought sushi home for dinner. Obviously he avoided the wasabi and spicy tuna, but he did fine with the mild rolls. And he even went and bought me a super tiny frosted chocolate chip cookie so I wouldn't feel bad not sharing it with him. And then he gave me the prettiest bouquet of flowers I've ever seen.

He also gave me a giant box of chocolates. The banner behind me was a gift from my mom. How cute is that??

Before Chris ever got sick, I had bought him a tiny box of chocolates with a cute tiny teddy bear attached to them. I kind of figured he'd get me chocolates, so I didn't want to overload us. Little did I know he would be sure to bring on the chocolate overload all by himself.

So we ate our sushi, watched a movie, and just took it easy (doctor's orders!) Not the worst Vday yet, but had the emergency room ordeal come a week later, it would have been a top contender. I totally lucked out because Chris is such a sweetheart and he still went out of his way to make the day special for me even though he was feeling good. So I am so appreciateive about that. I'm a lucky girl!

But I'm thinking next year we're going to sterilize our whole house the day before, take the day off from work, put a bubble around our house, hire some security guards and a private vet to stand watch, and then just cross our fingers that we make it through the curse of Saint Valentine. haha After all, I'm just lucky when it comes to having Chris.

But, I am happy to report that Chris is feeling a smidge better every day. He's still healing up, but he's not in a lot of pain, and he's able to eat more normal food now. He celebrated with three filet-o-fish sandwiches from McDonalds. I ate two. Love is a many splendored thing.