Valentine's Day 2011

Well, I have to say that this Valentine's Day wasn't the most successful one that we've ever had. In fact, we really struggled to make this one work. But that's okay, right? It's our 5th Valentine's Day, and I guess since 4 out of 5 were very successful, it was time for something to go wrong. So, I'll tell you about our night, and then maybe you'll understand why we never had a chance to get a picture of ourselves! :)

I made dinner reservations for us to eat at the Riverhorse on Main street in Park City for Tuesday night (the 15th) because, due to us waiting too long to reserve a spot, Monday was full. But that was okay, we figured, because it'd be less crazy anyway! Well, about a half week before our planned dinner, Trevor found out he had to make a last-minute trip down to Las Vegas on Monday evening and he wouldn't be back until late Tuesday when he had to go take a test. Well, my feathers were ruffled, but we just changed the reservation to Wednesday night at the same restaurant.

Okay. So things are set and I am SO excited to go on a fun little date with my husband and eat at a great restaurant with fabulous reviews!! Wednesday, I got off work at 5, headed home to touch up and change, and Trevor and I exchanged Valentines. (This part of the day was great, and made the whole adventure worth it.) I gave Trev a Carrabba's gift card (for a future "schfancy" date) and he gave me the palm tree necklace with emeralds and little diamonds :)
He's been pretty excited, lately, about colorful gemstones. And I can't say I'm complaining at all because I get to wear very lovely jewelry! And yes, I did change my outfit to match that necklace! :) I also got Trevor the cutest Valentine's Day balloon I have ever seen:
Shortly after exchanging valentines, we decided to make our way up to Park City early to stop by the Tanger Outlets before dinner. On the way up, we could see that there was a rather dark cloud looming above Timpanogos mountain (Park City is on the other side). We were a little worried that it would snow, like it always does, but we were still prepared to go up and have some fun!

So, when we were getting close to Park City, it did start to snow, but it wasn't too heavy nor was it sticking to the ground. We still weren't too worried. We stopped at J Crew first (which, by the way, I have never shopped at before, but had to check out per the recommendation of my friend Corinne Davis - she raves about it on her blog). Well, I think I fell in love at first sight. And I would have had a harder time if the cardigan and shirt I bought weren't 40% off plus a 15% off student discount (yay for Trev still being in school!!!). See exhibit A:
I just love love love the black 3/4 sleeve cardigan. So classic. It will never EVER go out of style :). And, like many other women lately, I am somewhat obsessed with the cute ruffle shirts!

Then, we visited Banana Republic (where Trevor had a gift card) and he got a few shirts. However, the outlets were completely empty, which might not be too weird for a Wednesday night, except we started to figure out that it probably had to do more with the quickly accumulating snow outside. After 20 minutes in J Crew, it had started to stick to the roads.

We had about a 20 minute drive to main street, but we quickly realized that we were in big trouble. It was a BLIZZARD outside, the roads were covered, and there aren't any street lights to guide your way. After about 15 or so minutes of trying desperately not to drive off the road, I called to cancel our dinner reservation. We didn't want to risk the snow piling up more for the next hour or so that we were eating.

We started feeling so upset at ourselves for not checking the weather beforehand. When we finally pulled up the radar on Trevor's phone, we realized that the storm was reaching from Idaho all the way to Provo and was traveling south quickly! The storm was honestly about 1/4 the size of the state of Utah, or bigger, and it was right on top of us.

Dreading the long drive back (usually about an hour without weather issues) on the winding roads and through Provo Canyon, I contemplated just getting a hotel for the night. What we had already driven through was scary, and it wasn't going to get any easier. But Trevor really wanted to go home, so off we went.

We struggled through almost two more hours of this:
Combined with this:
Sometimes we would follow the tail lights of the car in front of us, and just hope they could see where they were going and that we wouldn't follow them straight off the side of the road. But most of the time, there were no cars and no lights to show the way. We relied on reflector sticks or barriers on the side of the road, and if we could see the road lines, we would just follow them. I also followed along with the street map on my phone, just to make sure we were still on a road. And I said about 10239348 prayers. But we couldn't see more than 5 to 10 feet in front of us for most of the drive and there were moments when the road lines would disappear that we had no sense of direction whatsoever. It was a level 10 out of 10 stressful. So this is how I feel right now, about the weather in UT:
Needless to say, we DID make it (somehow) safely back to Provo. We pulled into Happy Sumo as soon as possible (because, by now, I was STARVING and it was 9:30pm) and got some yummy sushi.

So, no, it didn't go as planned. And, no, we didn't have a nice relaxing dinner at an amazing restaurant in Park City. But, you know what? We definitely had an adventure. Granted, it's an adventure I don't ever want to repeat, but we helped keep each other sane when we were close to losing it, and that definitely brought us closer together. And we learned our lesson that we should always, ALWAYS check the weather before traveling to Park City in the wintertime.

So, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! And I hope yours was wonderful and much less crazy than ours! :) <3