A Valentine's Day Surprise

Let me start this post with a disclaimer...I know I am a dork, I am proud of it!  If you didn't know, then reading this post will give you a pretty good idea about how dorky I can be.  

I love trivia, games, and logic puzzles, among other things.  With that also comes a love for torturing having fun with my man and making him work for his gifts.  

I missed Valentine's last year for an annual Girls' Weekend in Vegas (I know, shame shame for missing the first V-day married).  I figured I should do something nice to make-up for it.  I had an idea in the works for almost a month before hand, but the final product didn't actually come about until the day of the surprise.

It started with baking some cookies...

I found this really great, and easy, sugar cookie recipe here which actually doesn't need refrigeration!  It was so great and tasty.  So tasty, in fact I am eating one right now.  I skipped the almond and just went with 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract instead.  The cookies only needed about 6 minutes and they were delicious!  I suggest taking them out after 6 minutes, before they get golden  brown on the sides, like it is suggested.  Those ones dried out too much and became too crispy.

Then came the decorating with royal icing...

I have wanted to try this for some time so I figured it was the perfect time.  I just searched on youtube for a how-to video and went from there.  I am excited to try it again, hopefully making it look even smoother next time!

Once the cookies were decorated, it was time to make his card.  Thanks to Martha Stewart Living magazine for the idea I found the day before the surprise!!!  click here to see...

So here is where the dorky side of me kicks in.  I decided to spell out his big surprise on cookies and make him unscramble the clues. To make it even more annoying for him fun for me, I decided to spread the cookie letters throughout 5 bags.  

I hid them throughout the house and put clues to their location on little cards which went into the envelope card.  Extra crazy...I made the clues into Haiku's just for fun.  

Here are a few of the clues with their locations...

"Not used too often
So it hides beneath the tray
Of Beautiful wood" 

The clue led him to one of the bags sitting beneath my dad's office desk

Poor Pat, he had to wait for quite awhile, with building anticipation (not necessarily a bad thing), all weekend.  When he finally got to open his card, he was just overjoyed with the prospects of playing my little game!  Strong bit of sarcasm here.  Of course, I don't think it helped too much to have me laughing with glee the entire time he was figuring out my clues.  

Once he retrieved all 5 bags, he thought he was done; but no, I still had the word for him to unscramble!  

It was a 10 letter word.  I did make it a little better by letting him know that I made the decorating a pattern.  He really thought it had something to do with "San Diego" at first...but the letters just didn't work!

A few minutes into the struggle fun, I gave him the middle 2 letters of the clue.  "E and Y."  From there, he didn't need too much longer to finish the clue!

Yep...I was taking him to Disneyland!  Or, as he calls it, the "House of Mouse."  I had purchased the So-Cal 2 day park-hopper at the store awhile ago which will also let us go one more time before May.  We have been a few times throughout our relationship; including the week of our wedding, but we have never gone with just the two of us!  

So, there you have it... a look into the games I love to play with gifts.  I can't wait to do this kind of stuff to our kids, just like my parents did to us every once in awhile.  I hope you enjoyed some quality time with your Valentine!