The 13 Dates of Christmas...Past, Future & Presents (Dates 1 - 4)

Where to begin...okay last year Michael did the most awesome thing for me...he made me a scrapbook. It was a brief synopsis of our life together up to that point our first year as parents and looking ahead at the future since I was pregnant with Jack at the time, but we still didn't know he was a boy yet. It was the single most best gift I could have ever received. It totally made me cry.

Well this year instead of making me a physical scrapbook he decided to do a living scrapbook. So since last Friday everyday he has been surprising me with dates from our past. He is so cleaver! On Friday night I got a glimpse of what was to come with a letter explaining the story of how he found the "Rare and Dangerous Christmas Traditions" of 13 Dates of Christmas...Past, Future & Presents. He then ran me a bath and we had cocoa and I got to open my first present which was a new Ann Rule book.

On Saturday morning he told me that we needed to be ready by 11:30am so I thought that meant all of us. So we all got up and got ready and at 11:30 my parents showed up. I was so confused. They were there to watch the boys so we (Michael and I) could go out. Earlier he had given me a card to open and a present. The card talked about where we first met and the present was a picture of the stairs at our old school...which is where we first met.

So we got in the car and took a drive to Newcastle and up to our old school. The school isn't even around anymore. My class was actually the last graduating class since the school closed right after that. Fortunately it's still a church so the building has changed much. I decided to see if the door was open so we could have a look around...and it was. We walked around and talked about how it was back then. I went to Lake Boren Christian School since I was in 1st grade. I have a lot of fond memories about it. I really thrived at school there. I'm so happy that Michael's mom and dad came to be teachers at our school during my junior year or I would have never met him.

After we left the school we drove to La Fuente's and had lunch. We ate there for my 17th Birthday so that was a walk down memory lane too.

Yesterday he gave me another card and present to open. The card talked about a time when we were just friends and how we both wanted to explore Seattle so we went out one Saturday to do just that together. We were checking out Nike Town and Michael said at that moment when I was heading up the stairs he started to fall in love with me. Of course it took a little coaxing from my mom for me to see that Michael wanted to be more than just "friends". The present was a picture of the Nike Town sign in Seattle.

At 4:30pm yesterday evening Michael's mom and dad showed up to watch the boys so we could retrace our steps. We first ate at The Cheesecake Factory (That wasn't there back in 1997, but that's where the future part of the gift comes into play), then we stopped by Starbucks for some cocoa. We then headed over to the Sheridan Hotel to see all the gingerbread houses and since we had some time left before we needed to go home we stopped at Old Navy to buy some new PJ's.

Tonight Michael did things a little differently he had me open my present first to see if I could guess what was going to happen. The gift was a map with a few streets on it and a red square with the question...can you guess what happened here? Since I had just recently addressed a bunch of Christmas cards I knew exactly where it was. It was Michael's Aunt TD's house in Salem OR and what happened there was our very first kiss. The card talked about how we missed out on Thanksgiving with his family that year because we got separated from his parents on the drive down and how we ended up having to eat out. So my date tonight was going out to eat at Shari's which is the restaurant that Michael remembers us eating at. I remember it as Coco's, but who cares it was still very creative.

I wonder what my date will be tomorrow...stay tuned!