So Tony is notorious for his either inability to remember special holidays, and then in his desperation to make up for things, will the next time a special season rolls around, pull out the red carpet and stress himself out to the max to make it extra special. This year was one of those 'make up' years.
At promptly 3:45 on Saturday afternoon, he told me he had lots to do and that I needed to await his phonecall and he would tell me where to go and what to do. I tried waiting (patiently) at my folks place for him to call. At shortly passed 6 the phone rang, and he told me he would be in the driveway in minutes, and to get my coat on.
Upon opening the car door, I was greeted with the smell of Niakwa Pizza - my favourite. It was clear now we weren't going out to eat. The questions was: where are we eating this pizza? He drove past our house and for the life of me, I couldn't figure him out. Low and behold he pulls up at our pastors house: how romantic right? Well, it turns out that Dave and Lynn were gone for the weekend. He led me down to their uber chic newly appointed basement, and there he had set up the romance. The lights were dimmed, the fireplace was crackling (err, okay, so it was gas, and didn't have a crackle, but is was ON!) Old skool Sting was on the sound system, the candles were quickly lit, and I was served sparkling wine (juice) from a nice glass bottle. He cracked open that pizza box, and my vegetarian pizza had a heart on it, made of olives. (They made him pay extra! - haha) The best part was that surrounding the table was one cinnamon heart (arranged in a pattern) for every day that we have been together. That is 11 years which is 4015 cinnamon hearts, all counted out by hand. (I am going to be eating from a garbage bag of cinnamon hearts for the next 5 years!) He had me pick one out at a time and then he shared a memory from our years together for that 'day'. After which we ate ice cream drumsticks for dessert, and watched a movie on the big flat screen TV in matching lazyboys.
He put a TON of effort into making this night special. I cannot even believe how we have grown up together. We sure have a lot more gray, and a few more wrinkles (ahem - smile lines. I'm not even going to go INTO the stretch mark talk) but a whole lot more love for each other. What a beautiful thing this business of love and marriage is!
