A kidnapping

Our kids were counting down the days to Valentine's with as much vigor as they did Christmas. They were really, really, really excited. And last Tuesday night and Wednesday morning they started telling "secrets" to each other and daddy. On Wednesday morning, after dropping off two ecstatic secret keeping kids I asked Dave - so what's the big secret. To which he replied, "I promised the kids we would make you a Valentine tonight." Makes total sense, my kids are way into those types of the things.

Then Wednesday night Dave and I leave work and there is a card on my seat in the car. Dave's says to wait and open it until we have the kids. However, he doesn't turn to pick up the kids. So I ask, are we not getting the kids tonight? And my now hugely smiling husband says, nope, open the card. The card says that we are having a date night and he hopes I am hungry. Awesome. Now he points out all the things I have missed, like, car seats. I didn't even notice. We proceed to drive past every place I think he could possibly have planned a dinner at and keep going. Eventually we drive up to the Yorke Arms. We park next to a Bentley and a Porsche, our dirty Hyundai Santa Fe looked so out of place. We go inside and they ask if we are ready to check in, to which Dave replies "Yes". What a fabulous surprise! An overnight kidnapping, midweek. I was completely and totally surprised, I hadn't caught on to a thing. And Dave was so thrilled to have completely surprised me that he couldn't stop grinning.

The Yorke Arms is definitely worth writing about. It is a Michelin starred restaurant and the room was very comfortable. The food was exquisite. Dave had a packed a fancy black dress for me, that luckily still fit, and we went down to dinner in style. We had drinks in the lounge by the fire before they sat us. An English couple joined us in the lounge and told us about their trips to the States. I think they drove the Bentley. They told us that last summer they spent two weeks in that place outside of Boston, you know, the place the Kennedy's always go to.... The canapes were enough to get us really excited for dinner. Then there was a palate cleansing amuse bouche (all you Top Chef fans know what I am talking about) of creamy Leek soup with a red beet dollop. I had a pear, avocado, something else delicious salad and for dinner the Yorkshire fillet of beef. Dave ate something equally scrumptious for his appetizer and then tuna for dinner. But the desserts were the winning dish. Dave's was 4 or 5 marshmallow inspired dishes in interesting shapes, textures and flavors. Mine had a caramel thick ice cream type center with mango, limes, thin cookies and other yummy things surrounding it.

Then we went back to a quiet, cozy hotel room without the kids. It was the first night in weeks where we were not woken up in the middle of the night, and could wake up by the alarm clock instead of kids. We got up and ate breakfast there before leaving. Again, it was delicious.

There are many things I love about Dave, but this has to be one of the biggest. He does such amazing things for me, just because he likes to see how happy they make me. I can't believe that he pulled off all of the logistics without giving away a thing. Oh, wait, I can, because he really is that amazing. And yes, we are definitely planning on doing this again!