An Early Valentine's Day

Funny story.. In the 4+ years that Mike and I have been together, we have only celebrated one Valentine's Day (last year) in the same place. A little ridiculous, amIright?

Last year we celebrated with a nice dinner and exchanging small gifts (you can read about that here) and even though Mike will be gone by the 14th, we planned out something similar, just a little earlier! 

To kick off our early V-day, I whipped up some delicious red velvet pancakes! Mike loves anything involving red velvet and even though I'm not usually big on breakfast food or cavity inducing sweetness.. I couldn't stop eating these! Seriously so good.

We were eating them too quickly to even snap a decent photo!

For dinner we hit up Duck's, which is probably the "nicest" restaurant in Jacksonville. It's a little place on the side of the road by our old town house, and from the outside it really doesn't look like much.. But the menu features items like a hoisin marinated elk chop with wasabi mashed potatoes (one of Mike's favorites) and some DELISH shrimp and grits (my #1 choice) plus they have a kick ass dirty martini! 

As for gifts, I found some inspiration on Pinterest (pinspiration? no?) to make this jar of "kisses" for Mike to bring on deployment with him. 

On his first two deployments we sent a lot of letters back and forth and all of mine had a big ol' red smooch at the bottom! This time he'll have a whole jar handy for the days he really needs one :) I also gave him an Amazon gift card to use to purchase books for his Kindle. Hopefully that will help him stay busy over the next six-ish months! Other than that, my gift was all about the candy.

Mike of course did NOT disappoint with his gifts! I received some new charms for my Pandora bracelet, a huge, fabulous, and dishwasher safe (holla if you hate washing dishes..) sauté pan, and a FitBit!

I've been drooling over the little FitBit flexes for the past couple months and I'm really looking forward to tracking my fitness while Mike is away! Seriously I think this man knows how to read my mind because he always knows exactly what I am wanting/needing in my life and totally delivers :)

Unfortunately we are now in the final countdown before Mike heads out. In some ways, this is really the worst little stretch of time. The deployment is looming right on the horizon and we know how close the send off is, so the anticipation is pretty overwhelming. Once Mike gets on the bus it just means that we are that much closer to him being home again and that's all that really matters :)

A lot of people have been asking what my plan is while he's gone, and honestly I don't have much on my agenda. I'll be staying in Jacksonville except for a short couple trips to Colorado and a brief overnighter in Virginia for a baby shower. I do hope to take full advantage of my neighborhood pool once it opens up so I can be nicely bronzed when the hubs gets back! Other than that it will probably just be life as usual... Wake up, coffee, walk the dog, binge watch Netflix, repeat ;)

One last thing... The confirmed deployment address was finally distributed! Apparently I made a huge effing bit of a mistake last time when I posted Mike's address on the blog... Whoops! So this time around I won't post it publicly, but if anyone wants to send him a package, letter, amazon gift card ;), etc. just let me know and I'll be sure to pass it your way!

Next up: Mike's send off and potentially a deployment bucket list..? Lists and wine... It's what keeps me sane!