Hot Valentine's Date

Every year for the past four years, we've gotten together with a group of friends to celebrate Valentine's Day. It started out the first year with the husbands planning a special date night as a surprise for the wives. They planned a scavenger hunt in downtown Winslow to give them time to cook a gourmet dinner. After dinner a "professional" photographer (my brother, Tyler, who was in photography school at the time) took pictures of each couple. Then we sat around the fire and read poetry from a book that the wives picked out on the scavenger hunt. It was verses from love songs like "Tainted Love" and "You Give Love a Bad Name". I wish I could remember the title of the book; it was pretty funny!

The next year it was the wives' turn and we planned a "Not So Newlywed Game". Then back to the husbands; they hired my professional chef brother-in-law, Tad Mitsui, to cook dinner for us and "borrowed" a friend's house who was out of town for us to dine in. Last year, the wives put together tributes to their husbands in video or photo format.


This year it was the husbands' turn again. They took us to Jazz Alley in Seattle for a delicious dinner and wonderful entertainment provided by Mindi Abair. I'm not usually a jazz fan, but I really enjoyed this show. Brad has a new "man crush" on her bass guitarit, Andre Berry (sorry, Ralph!)

After the show, we rode back to the ferry and while we waited, re-lived the 80s thanks to Margit's awesome i-pod selections. Some of our all time favorites: The Police, The Smiths, Erasure, Yaz, Alphaville, English Beat, DePeche Mode, Duran Duran, OMD...