Our Valentine’s Day Adventure

Our Valentine’s Day adventure actually started last week, when us guys (Chad, Andrew, and I) decided that instead of taking one day to celebrate Valentine’s Day, we would take six. What ensued was pretty good times for the girls which involved dividing each day of the week into a school subject (since they’re all in the school system):

• Sunday they had Math and needed to solve a story problem for a special prize.
• Monday was History class where we recorded a video for them recalling some of our favorite moments over the past several months.
• Tuesday was Art class where we gave them an awesome picture of us three guys for their desks… which according to them, they cannot put on their desks since the frames say “Hugs and Kisses”… please…
• Wednesday was Music class where us guys (well, mostly Andrew) wrote them a song to the tune of “Move Along” by the All-American Rejects. We then played Rockband while Andrew mixed our vocals with the karaoke track. Ha ha!
• Thursday was English class where Andrew and Chad wrote poems for the girls, I wasn’t in the mood.
• Friday was Gym class and we took the girls cosmic skating followed by “Ghetto Putt-Putt.”

This leads us to Saturday, the culmination of the week where the girls were being a little bit sketchy about the plans. Finally we received a text that said, “Meet at Chad’s by 6:30.” We all arrived at Chad’s thinking, “okay, this is nice, the ladies will pick us up and take us out to dinner.” Nope! Instead we got an e-mail, “Gentlemen, In preparation of this evening we thought it would be appropriate to reflect on our friendship Your journey will begin under your feet as you entered your present location. Enjoy your journey, The Ladies.”

This clue seemed pretty obvious to me, as I was standing on the doormat. Voila! Clue number one! The first clue mentioned the following, “Till the one day when the ladies met the fellas. Do you remember that very awesome day? Here you will find your first clue of the evening in Kiel’s special place.”

Okay, now first of all, I don’t have a “special place” and the other guys were perplexed as to why I wouldn’t know where my special place was. I sent Betsy a text for further clarification. The only place we could think of was church, so we were headed on the first leg of our journey!

Chad ponders, “Where is Kiel’s ’special place?’”	So we packed up the car and headed north to Church!

Upon arriving at church we figured that through some connections, the girls might’ve gotten a key to my office. So we went up there, saw the door was unlocked, and unlocked the door to my office… nothing. So I figured the only place they could’ve placed the clue was in the employee workroom. I would not classify this as my special place, but we went downstairs and sure enough, there was another clue along with a CD in my mailbox.

We were supposed to sing the next clue to the tune of All-American Rejects’ song, “Move Along,” instead we just skimmed through it. Here’s an excerpt, “Here we go… And all holding on real tight. Move along, down the hill gotta dodge those trees. And all resting afterwards, chillin’ out, sitting down on the prayer bench. Here we go!” There was only one place this could be, since we had only been sledding once this season and it was at Northview Christian Life Church down the street (because they have some awesome hills).

So we hopped in the car, popped in the CD (which started playing the Friends theme song), and drove down to Northview. Well, we got to Northview and looked at all the benches and didn’t see anything. Now don’t ask us why we did this, but we went ahead and walked down the hill, which was quite a trek, especially in the dark. I used my camera flash as a light and we still couldn’t find a clue. So we started to trek back up the hill where Chad was determined to go back to my car and check the clue again. I got lazy and texted Betsy. “Look under the benches!” So we did…

Checking the benches….	We found it!

Ahhh, sweet victory. What did that final clue say? Something to the effect of, “So no one told you you were gonna drive all night” and “But we’re still cooking dinner and gotta stall for time.” But FINALLY, there was no other clue on this card, so we headed to Faith and Betsy’s where we knew the girls were at.

Even though they had stalled us, we apparently were still early and even though we had brought them flowers, they still made us wait in the car. But when they finally let us in, there was nice music playing, the table was set, and the smell of food was in the air. SWEET! Fortunately they had some appetizers and salad waiting for us…

Yummy bruschetta!	He likes it, “hey Mikey!”

I have to admit that I was starting to get antsy, after all I hadn’t eaten all day and just spent time trekking up and down the big hill at Northview in my dress clothes. But Chad enjoyed his salad… one leaf at a time… and the girls finally brought us some AMAZING fettuccine alfredo!

Eating one leaf at a time…	Amazing fettuccine alfredo

After dinner we had “indoor recess” which included a game of Jeopardy based on our friendship. Andrew came in first (by choosing all the highest categories), I came in second (even after answering some questions wrong), and Chad came in third. Once we finished Jeopardy, the girls sang us the songs that were on our “clue cards” (probably because we were so hungry we failed to sing them).

Well, what can you do after such an exciting day? The girls were very gracious and didn’t make us watch a chick flick (I don’t mind chick flicks) and instead we watched Traitor. It was a good movie and at the end the girls gave us a gift bag with a picture of the three of them… AWWW. I still think our “Hugs and Kisses” frames were cuter, but you know, they were very well decorated and we give them an “A” for effort.

Chad, Andrew and I have to agree that having three dates on Valentine’s Day is SO much greater than having just one. Faith, Steph, and Betsy, you three are completely awesome and the three of us guys are lucky to have you in our lives.

So yeah, that was our Valentine’s Day (or Week) adventure!

So my old boss at Marsh left me a message when I went to pick up the flowers for the girls, “Dear Kiel, how do you keep track of three girls?” Ha ha! Love you too Rita! And thanks to David and his staff for doing an awesome job on the flowers!