Valentine's Day

 

Happy belated Valentine's Day!💗 As I started working on this blog before launching, I had gotten started on some holidays that have now already come and gone, but if you ask me, any day is a good day to celebrate love! 

Shane and I celebrated together all weekend long! On Friday, we enjoyed some Blaze Pizza and went to the movie theater (our first time together there in years!) to see King Richard; I highly recommend that movie. Will Smith was amazing, as always. I'm having a moment with buttered popcorn, so that cozy environment complete with movie theater popcorn was heavenly. 

On Saturday, we got up and enjoyed a walk on the nearby beach with C&C.

After living here for awhile, we don't take advantage of the ocean being 5 mins. away nearly as much as we should! We've tried to make more of an effort again lately though- especially during this non-crowded time of year. We get there about once a week these days just to walk the pups in the evenings. As it warms up, we'll be there at least once on the weekends again too to lay in the sun.

On the Saturday before Valentine's Day, Shane and I made the hour drive to New Bern. It has just the cutest historic downtown area that we've been fortunate to visit about 3 times previously.

We ate at our favorite New Bern restaurant, Morgan's Tavern, that we actually ate at our very first time in NC- when we were exploring areas to live. It has amazing food and we love the historic vibes inside!

After dinner, we walked around and enjoyed seeing the pharmacy where Pepsi was invented.

New Bern is where Nicholas Sparks lives, and where many of his books take place, and we found ourselves walking by a building dedicated to his foundation. I have always loved his books!

We walked by carriage rides and saw there was availability, so we spontaneously decided to hop on. While we've done two other carriage rides in Charleston and Beaufort, SC that were tours, this one was just a ride through town.

On Valentine's Day morning, I got Galentine's coffee with two coworkers who happen to live nearby. Since we work remotely, we talk via Slack and Zoom often, but it was so nice to get to meet in person for the first time! It felt like I was walking into a blind date as my eyes roamed around the coffee shop to find them, hah! The connections I have made working at Dailies have been the BEST. And shoutout to Courtney, on my right; she is the only person I have met who reads more than me!

After I wrapped up work and after Shane got home from work, we took the pups to the beach to let them run free. We started letting them run free in the field behind our house last year (which is mostly enclosed), and since then, we've been able to let them do it in other random fields when traveling and such! They are way too attached to us that they wouldn't dare to run off permanently, hah! They do a great job of not going too far and coming back when called, so we've let them try it out on the (deserted) beach recently. 

Caylor always goes into the water to chase seagulls and sometimes surprises herself when it drops off. Cash wants absolutely nothing to do with the water and he keeps his distance.

Shane and I naturally got into the rhythm of going out for Valentine's Day the weekend before, but having a cozy, romantic, homemade dinner at home on the actual holiday. Since he made steaks last year, I made ribs, au gratin potatoes, and Texas Toast (just g-free bread for me...). We shared cards at night since we did gifts earlier that morning!

This time of year brings about some weird feelings for me, as it was this time last year that we were preparing for his final days before sending him off for deployment. We can't believe that was a year ago. Time passing only gets crazier and faster as we get older.

All in all, it was a wonderful Valentine's weekend, and we hope you had a great one too! I always love this holiday (even when I was single) due to the colors, decorations, and just overall feelings it creates!