I just recently found out that my out of state parents will be in town over valentines day. They have offered to watch our 3 darling daughters (ages 4, 3 and 8 mo) and allow my wife and myself some respite (mostly my wife).
What should I do? I want to do something different then the usual flowers and dinner stuff.
I don't even know where to start. Last time we were alone(we actually got a babysitter) we didn't talk much. It was just nice to have quiet.
So ladies, what do you suggest? What would you like your man to do for YOU?
Posts: 98 | Registered: Aug 2003
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A special dinner? Maybe recreate a special moment to show how caring and thoughtful you are? Or you could put the ball in her court and present her with a "pass" good for anything she wants for the one evening. Posts: 601 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Involve music. Somehow. It's best if you can play something and sing, but pulling over in a park, putting in a CD, and dancing works too. Even better if you're ina place that's semi-warm and you have a coat that large enough to cover the both of you.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I would like to remind the Gentlemen of Hatrack, that if you are going to cook for your Lady (and this is a nice idea), remember to clean up the kitchen!
Seriously.
If at all possible, clean as you go, so that there is no chance of her thinking to herself "well, that's nice and all, but now I have a hundred dirty pots to scrub". Even if you SAY you will clean the kitchen, it won't matter unless we see you doing it. So for a most worry-free, wonderful dinner, please clean as you go.
Yes, I have issues. *grin*
I think that dinner OUT to a nice restaurant is better. Then neither of you has to clean. Yay!
Best of all (and my fondest wish): Room service at a nice hotel. Get recommendations from people who have money to spend on such things, people you trust.
What I want for Valentine's Day: A Night and Day Alone. Sounds terrible, and indeed, I am extremely happy in my marriage, but I am tired of all of the noise in this house. I would like to stay at a nice hotel with the television off (no chance of that, if That Man I Married comes with me) and persons at my beck and call should I require an egg sandwich.
Perhaps that is a present better suited to my birthday. Not terribly romantic being alone.
So yes: nice homemade dinner is good, as long as cleaning of kitchen is done concurrently. Also, Evening Out Doing Adult Things (well, not XXAdultXX things, grown up stuff). Perhaps Nice Hotel Room. And even though I always protest that cut flowers are a waste of money, I do enjoy them. But roses are not my favorite. Find out the favorite flower of your Lady, and if you remember this, you are made in the shade.
Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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Simply be with them. Trust me, being apart for two Valentine's Days in a row, being with the one you love is a big thing.
Posts: 873 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Unfortunately Valentine's Day doesn't lend itself real well to this due to the weather, but if you're lucky enough to be some where warm:
Arrange ahead of time to have a nice dinner waiting and prepared somewhere outside - in a walking garden or somesuch place. College campuses usually have something that will work.
GO for a walk before dinner and come upon the romantic dinner setting "spontaneously."
Good sample menu:
Hummus on pita triangles and crudités as appetizer.
Small salads (mixed greens, ground walnuts, crumbled feta cheese, and bartlett pear shavings with a very light touch of oil and vinegar)
Quiche (lorraine, primavera, or crab)
Strawberries and champagne for dessert (with chocolate and/or fresh whipped cream to dip them in if she likes that)
Important: serve everything in real dishes and have flowers and candles on the table. Have a CD player there with some string or piano music - Brahams or Chopin is good. After dinner, put on something to dance to and dance outside.
Give her something shiny and tell her you love her.
Head to a nice hotel within walking distance.
If you can find a friend (probably single on Valentine's day) to set up the dinner, it can be very cheap, leaving funds for the shiny thing and hotel.
posted
Play Counterstrike and Warcraft III until 4 am in the morning; make sweet, sweet love; go to sleep. Repeat.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Slash, are you the one sending all the junk email to my inbox?
Before I recommend, I need to know if your parents are going to watch the kids all night - in other words, is this just a four-five hour dinner date type thing or a get-a-hotel-room spend-the-night thing?
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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The Candlelight Bath is always a good one...
Soft music, a nice warm bath steaming, candles all over the place. Soft towels and fluffy bathrobes nearby. In the bath, sprinkle freshly plucked red rose petals. The scent is heavenly. Make a path with the petals from the bath to the bed, and put the petals between the sheets. (You might want to have sheets you don't care too much about staining).
Other additions - massage oil, hairbrushes to brush her hair, etc.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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Not sure if its all night or just the evening.
My wife isn't one to want to be alone or sit in a hotel without much to do (no jokes here!) If we go somewhere, she wants to do something.
Anything would be good as long as it's away from the kids.
BTW, we're in the Seattle area. So outside stuff probably isn't something I can plan on, more of a spur of the moment thing if the weather is nice.
Gonna try the bath tub thing someday. Probably not Valentines cause of company. I'm gonna put a rolled up sappy note in a bottle with a cork at the top and have it floating in an already drawn bath when she gets up one morning. Flower petals, stinky candles etc.
Anyway, I like the ideas I'm seeing. Keep em coming. Posts: 98 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Get a specialty hotel room with a "theme". Jungle can be fun, you know the kind with a hottub and a waterfall. You can play darts with the suction-cup darts on the tile.
You could also get some body paints, and make her a work of art (bring a clean twin sheet to use as a dropcloth/blotter. Paints must be non-toxic, flavored a plus).
Or, Go get outfitted with complete inline skates and accessories and find a nice multi-level parking garage to skate in after hours(that way it isn't weather-dependant).
Oh! This one time, Ron picked me up from work and just started driving. He'd packed my bag already. He drove straight to a cabin and pretended to be checking it out to see if we wanted to rent it for the night (of course he already had, by phone). I thought I'd die when he found the key and let himself in! He had to confess before I'd join him. There was champagne and a jacuzzi. Fireplace with a big cushy rug, too. It was really neat. Bet you'd be out of luck with something like that, though. Not enough lead time.
You could do one of those progressive dinners-- where you go to a different restaurant for each course. If you know some of the people who own or operate some of them, you could arrange to have little gifts brought to her at the table.
Gety a friend to videotape you re-enacting her favorite romantic scenes from movies, just for her. Women love it when guys willingly make idiots out of themselves to impress us.
Edit: I meant like, dress up like Forrest Gump and say, I may not be a smart man, but Io know what love is." etc.
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sigh....it all depends on her personality, of course.
Me? I'm not really into shiny things, and those jacuzzi tubs get me seasick. Champagne gives me headaches. Yeah, I'm really fun at parties. But a night at a supposedly "haunted" bed and breakfast...(having to snuggle under the blankets to avoid the "spirits") yeah, that would be fun and romantic. There's one near us that we used to go to before we had children. I wonder if it's still as wonderful as it was then.
The themed room idea sounds great to me, too.
Posts: 676 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Try a play and an art museum, maybe coupled with a little spontaneous shopping. In my experience, women generally find this mildly romantic but not overwhelmingly exhausting. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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If we go somewhere, she wants to do something.
