A Valentine Story

In honor of our engage-iversary (previously mentioned here) I'm going to finish this Valentine's Day post that I started last month.

Valentine's Day isn't something we normally celebrate. Occasionally we will use it as an excuse to go out to dinner (since that is a rare thing for us to do anymore) but even then we don't go anywhere out of the ordinary. I think last year we went to Pei Wei and ate outside on their patio, which was very enjoyable. This year, however, we decided to take advantage of the fact that we had a gift card to our favorite restaurant. Before I tell you about our actual Valentine's Day adventure, here's a brief back story of how this place became our favorite.
 
One Friday afternoon a couple of months after we moved here, Jake text me from work and told me to make a plan for that night. Well, those who know us best can tell you exactly what we do on a Friday night; we go to a movie. Since we were still in our "exploration mode" though, I decided I wanted to surprise Jake with something new. I started searching for top rated restaurants and found a place called La Hacienda in Scottsdale. I liked the sound of it and decided that's where we'd go that night. I didn't realize it, but the restaurant is part of a very nice resort called the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess. When we got there, we felt a bit under dressed while getting our car valet parked, and I started to worry we wouldn't get in without a reservation. I'm not sure now if we ended up having to wait long for a table but we did get in and we had an amazing dinner. The kind of dinner that you dream about (seriously, Jake has a few times). Not only was the food so unique and delicious, but the whole ambiance of the place was fun and romantic so it quickly and easily became our favorite restaurant. Although we knew it would also have to be a special occasion restaurant because of the prices. We ended up going back for Jake's birthday a few months later and this time, we discovered they have handmade churros each night for dessert with 3 dipping sauces; chocolate, crème, and caramel. We also discovered you have to order them quickly or they'll run out. We ended up snagging the last order before we'd even ordered dinner! After experiencing these churros and another fantastic dinner, Jake went to work and raved about it. I guess his co-workers were paying attention because they gave him a gift card at Christmas and we were so excited to use it.
 
So, this Valentine's Day was going to be a little different than normal. We made a reservation about a month in advance and we planned to get real dressed up. We spent the day window shopping at a nice outdoor mall so we could enjoy the nice weather and kill some time. After a very nice day together, we went home to change and make ourselves look nice. We ended up getting to the resort just as the sun was starting to set and we were a little early so we found a nice place to sit next to a fireplace and just enjoyed the moment together. The resort atmosphere is a huge part of the reason we love this place. There are so many pretty areas to sit outside and soak in the perfect weather. We had a wonderful dinner with homemade chips and guacamole that they mix together at your table, steak, enchiladas, and of course, homemade churros. After we rolled ourselves out of the restaurant, we decided we weren't ready to go home yet so we went back to that little fireplace and we ended up talking about life and our future for a while. I can honestly say, there are moments when I fall in love with Jake all over again, and this was one of them. I felt so proud to be planning my future with him and so excited about what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go. Every year we have the perfect Valentine's Day together because even if we don't choose to celebrate it in a fancy way, we get to celebrate it together. This year was just extra special, and it will definitely be one we never forget. Here's the best part of this post: the pictures.