Valentine's Firsts

There's something special about firsts.  If I know a first is coming up, I try to do something memorable for it. It's become harder and harder to do traditionally memorable things with such a strict budget but we're getting pretty creative.  We're going to keep the budget strapped down for another year and half, and we have a lot more "firsts" in our first year of marriage!

This past weekend was Bryann and my first Valentine's weekend as a married couple.  Since Valentine's Day is on a Tuesday, and I have choir practice tonight, we decided to celebrate early.  And in the spirit of keeping our spending down, we headed out to Pacific Blue and spent the weekend frolicking on the beach.  We drove up to Cannon Beach on Saturday and found a neat spot at the edge of town where the river runs into the ocean, and played fetch with Sam there for awhile.  I'm sure the river was freezing, but he was so happy jumping in and swimming around for his bright orange ball.

We had lunch at our favorite Cannon Beach Brewery - Bill's Tavern - which serves a splendid Blackberry wheat, and where we teased each other about the beginnings of grey hairs and wrinkles, and talked about what Valentine's day might be like in 5 years or 10 years.  Then we went to the outlets in Seaside to get Bryann some more work shirts and did some more beach frolicking.  :-P  The weather cooperated beautifully.  It wasn't summer weather, but the sun came out a few times and it didn't rain on us at all.

Lots of Bingo cards to keep track of!  

Then Saturday night we decided to be adventurous and check out Bingo night at the Lion's Club.  What better way to celebrate being married than to act like old married people!  We spent a whopping $20, played over 3 hours of Bingo, and were lucky enough to win a round for a $4 total profit.  We even made friends with another old married couple who loaned us their Bingo Dabbers and taught us how to play.  (I know you think you know how to play Bingo, but this was a more intense Bingo than I'd ever dreamed!)

We plan on going back to play Bingo whenever we're in town.  It was soooooooo much fun!  Even if we hadn't won, it was a nice way to spend the evening - doing something new with my hubby and laughing all along the way in our usual fashion.

On Sunday, we left a bit early (after a walk and one more round of fetch on the beach with Sammy) and stopped at a few wineries on the way back up to Portland.  I'll write more about those on the Wine & Dine Portland blog in a few days, but we enjoyed the February countryside at Tualatin Estate and a wine and chocolate pairings at Appolini Vineyards.

The vineyards are still gorgeous even in February

Enjoying my first wine and chocolate pairing

I'm not sure what the next 5 or 10 or 20 or even 50 years hold for us, but I love adventuring out with Bryann.  Frequenting our favorite joints, and throwing in a new activity here and there.  Life is always interesting with Bryann, and I'm so grateful to have him in my life and to be able to say I'm still madly in love with him even after almost 8 years together.