A Birthday Getaway!

My husband's 45th birthday was on Tuesday, the 22nd and I planned a great two day getaway for him, if I say so myself!  The best part of all was that he was TOTALLY surprised! 

I actually started his little birthday surprise a week before by sharing with him a "Few of my Favorite" things about him along with some of his favorite things.  First of all I printed off these cards.

I gave him the poem and the first card (along with a treat!) 5 days before our get away.  Each day he would find one stuck in his bag or left in the truck.  You can get a copy of the poem and the cards at oopsey-daisy.  She actually did a blog swap with Dating Diva's and that is where the post came from too! 

On to the surprise.  My plans were almost foiled when we got hit with a HUGE snowstorm on Sunday afternoon into Monday morning.  I love snow but this one threatened ice and I knew if we got ice, there was no way I could pull this off but, thankfully we "only" got about 12 inches of snow AND my parents only got snow too! 

This whole two day date was based on clues that I had written.  On Monday morning, I waited for my parents to arrive, planning to give Darryl the first clue when they walked in the door but, wouldn't you know it, he just happened to see them turn the corner LOL  He was dumbfounded!  I don't think he even really knew what to think or what to do!! 

We hit the road and the first clue gave him a rhyme to tell him where we were eating - he had to sing the song "Rockin' Robin" to figure out we were going to Red Robin . . .but, just that morning I had seen a coupon for $5.00 off of $15.00 at TGIF so I gave him that option and we switched restaurants to save some money :-)

 Once we finished our fantastic burgers, he had a clue that gave him the choice of two activities - (both in secret rhyme)  - either bowling or a movie.  He decided a movie was in order.  I had printed off the sheet with movies and highlighted the times that worked.  We decided to go see "The Tourist" mostly because we both love Johnny Depp as an actor.  It was a good movie but not very deep (and it does have a couple spots of language in it . ..just saying) And of course, we had to have popcorn! LOL

Now, due to all of the snow, my parents arrived a little later than originally planned so . .. something had to give in my plan.  I had originally planned that we would next go to Target and each buy some treats for a game we would play later.  We tossed this out but you can check out the idea at Dating Diva's and may decide to use it yourself :-)

We did stop and buy a few snacks a little later since I hadn't brought anything as I normally do but we did not play this whole game.

Instead, I gave him his clue of where we were staying and we headed to our Hotel.  I love Travelocity - I got such an awesome deal, which is why we could go away over night, on an incredible hotel!!

Darryl was very excited to be at a hotel - can you tell?

Our room had a balcony that overlooked the pool - it was awesome!

The Pool Area.

My next clue had to do with dinner - even though I had picked a place we liked, I let Darryl make the final decision and he picked my second choice (sometimes rhyming with one is better than the other LOL).  We went to dinner at The Crazy Horse Saloon - a fantastic Steak Place.

It is tradition to put a $1.00 on the wall at the restaurant.

Than we just headed back to the hotel, which was pretty much empty, swam in the pool and relaxed.

Tuesday morning, his actually birthday, his first clue sent us to the Mall where he got to pick lunch (We ate at Panera Bread) and than, I had a game planned at Barnes and Noble.  This is another Dating Diva's idea and is a blast.

If you read her post, you'll see that they only got to three at a time - well, she's right.  It takes awhile to do the first set of three but is so much fun!  Here are pictures of our recipes that we found:

We are planning on each making the recipe we picked out over the next two weeks so that should be fun!!!

From the mall, we headed to the Grand Rapids Public Museum for the Bodies Revealed Exhibit.

It was really pretty amazing to see all of the different systems within our body and how they work.  Both Darryl and I really studied the section on the lung trying to figure out how much of her lung my sister-in-law had taken out !!  The tickets included the whole museum and a free ride on the carousel!

I'm the baggage LOLOL

Darryl is saying "I want out of here fast!" Yes, we always do dorky stuff like that!

Finally, the last clue sent us to a restaurant that we always have wanted to go to - Charley's Crab - and we were not disappointed.  Get this, the day I made my whole plan and solidified everything, Darryl came home with a $12.00 coupon to THIS restaurant!  What's the chances of that?  Needless to say I hid it away to use for dinner.

This was by far one of the best meals either one of us have had in a very long time!  Yes, it will be a once a year treat but it was so worth it!! (And this replaced "The 1913 Room" on my 40x40 list . .just saying LOL)

Then, we headed home :-)  It was a fantastic and much needed get away . .. I think I could have almost used just one more day!

OHHH one last thing!  His gift.  Darryl has seen those stickers on vehicles for awhile that show the members of the family and just really liked them.  So, I did some looking and found a fantastic site called Say It On the Wall and got him this:

Isn't that awesome???  And Laura was fantastic to work with!!  She responded quickly, gave me all of the options and explained the process well; than I had my vinyl within just a few days!  Check out that site if you are looking for some neat things for your wall or vehicle!!  I also gave him the date cards that I talked about in this post.