1 ton van on a frozen lake....

So I am not a big one to want to celebrate Valentine's Day.  I have strongly told Brian to NEVER buy me flowers on valentines day.  It is that one day that has gotten soooooo over materialized, I cannot allow Brian to spend $50 on roses or any other flowers just for the "I love you - its Valentine's Day"  This year we had decided to not buy any gifts for each other, but before we decided that I had already bought Brian a few new items of clothing!!! I gave it to him on Saturday so he could not claim it as a V-Day gift!!!  He was mad because he did not get me anything, but I was happy because he really liked what I got.  Anyways...onto our weekend.

This was the first weekend in a long time that we actually did not have anything planned.  We were supposed to do a few things on Saturday night but that was about it.

Friday started off great! I had my performance review and got a very unexpected raise and a very nice bonus, so I was pretty pumped!  Then after Brian got home we met up with some of our friends for a quick happy hour.  From there we went to Melissa and Scott's to have dinner with my parents and then watch Logan for the night so Lis and Scott could go hang out with the "soon to be newlyweds, Aaron and Andrea". We put Logan to bed and fell asleep not too long after that.  We had fun spending time with my parents as well as Logan. It was a very relaxing night!

Saturday we woke up and decided we would go ice fishing. I haven't had a chance to be out all season. So we got everything ready, packed up Brian's parents van, and off we headed to Albertville.  Everything that could have went wrong, did!!!  We first missed our exit to get off to go the the lake, so then we turned around and decided to get a quick "early" lunch. Culvers was closed, so we decided to look for something else. We went to go find the public access at the lake. We found it and as we were turning around in the parking lot, the van got STUCK.  I said....REALLY, is this happening???  Luckily another guy was headed out onto the lake and helped Brian push.  We went back to Montecillo and went to get some bait.  The guy at the gas station said you have to go to the bait shop. By this time we were hungry so we decided on McDonalds.  Then we went to the bait shop, got our worms and headed back to the lake.  I got a little nervous after already getting stuck.  Brian though we would be able to make it but he wasn't sure, so we said we would go for it.  We figured the path out to the fish houses would be plowed well because there we a TON of houses on the lake, our only fear would maybe be turning around.  As we began on the ice, it was not too bad, then the path split and it got more narrow. Every vehicle on the ice was 4-wheel drive.  As we continued it got more narrow and thicker with snow and then we were stuck.  We managed to get it unstuck and then about 400 feet more we got stuck again. At this point we figured we were not going to be able to get turned around, so we stayed where we were, set up the house and started to fish.   We called Brian's dad to tell him what happended and we asked him to come and bring us some chains or a tow strap with my car and then join us for the day fishing.  I caught the first two...and only two fish of the day!  Cindy and Doug finally arrived and we tried multiple things to get the van out...nothing was working.  We really just wanted to get it turned around and then figured we would be okay.  We hooked the tow strap up to the back of the van and the hitch of my car and after a lot of pushing it got loose.  Cindy was in the van and Brian the pathfinder and as soon as they got going, they did not stop.  Doug and I chased for a moment but it was two miles back to shore. We figured Brian was just going to go all the way.  It was pretty comical seeing a van being pulled backwards on the ice.  They got a number of  "hoots" and "hollars" along the way.  Upon their arrival back we all fished for a couple of hours and nothing was biting so we decided to pack up, get off the ice, and head to Maynards for dinner.  After a long wait we were finally seated and had a wonderful dinner.  We were either going to go to Azia or Mayslacks with groups of friends, but felt it would be nice to continue to spend the evening with Brian's parents since they came and helped us.  We got back to the house and decided to go sit in the hot tub for a bit.  Then we came hope, popped a bottle of champagne and watched the movie "Extract." It was pretty funny.

Today we woke up and went to church at 11.  There is a series going on called "The Vow" so we felt what better to go and see what could pertain to our upcoming marriage to each other.  It was a really good service.  We missed last weeks because we went to Anoka's service, so we will have to watch that online as well as next weeks as Brian will be ice fishing.  After church we headed to Chipotle for a quick lunch, got our cars washed, went grocery shopping and then headed to a 4:00 matinee to see "Valentine's Day"  with a large list of big named actors and actresses, it was pretty funny and cute.  We came home and watched "Inglorius Bastards" and then Brian was off to hockey.

We had a perfect, unplanned, very fun weekend.  Theses are the days I love to keep in my memory forever.