Then I thought some more (yes, my thinker got sore) and decided to see if I could pull off a complete surprise trip to Vegas. I think I've surprised Jacob a grand total of 3 times* in our marriage (okay, now it's 4). He's just really observant. And I'm a bad liar/secret keeper.
So I got on the computer and the phone and made some plans. I recruited his wonderful sister (who happens to be 36 weeks pregnant - she's such a good sport. And I almost just wrote 36 months pregnant. Don't tell her I said that) to watch our kids and found a good deal at our favorite place to stay in Las Vegas, Caesar's Palace. Actually, I had never stayed there before but Jacob took a siblings trip to Vegas about 2 years ago and he stayed there then and loved it. We have previously stayed at the Venetian (blah) and at the Marriott (check out that story if you don't remember it).
I ended up planning the trip for only a week and a half in advance, April 2nd. I think short notice helps me keep things secret and it certainly seemed to help. A few days before we left, I called our favorite place to eat in Vegas and made dinner reservations. I even took my sneakiness to the level to take the kids' overnight stuff over to Kathy's house 4 days before we left when I was out doing errands without Jacob. I was DETERMINED that he have no clue until we were on the road.
I knew once Easter was over, I was going to be going crazy keeping quiet. Wow - it was hard. I felt like every silence in our house was awkward and that he completely knew. I was also worried that he would be mad that I messed up his week. I even tried to feel out if he wanted to go on a second date that week (we had already had the Lindsey Stirling concert on the calendar for months) and he told me he thought it was a terrible idea to go on two dates - we didn't want to over stress our babysitter. I know I'm a weirdo but we're talking some serious pins and needles. I packed our bag the day before and hid it in the closet. I thought I was busted when Jacob couldn't find his toothbrush that night (DOH!) but he blamed it on the kids. :-P
So April 2nd arrived and I informed him that we were going out to eat for lunch, I had made the plans already and he couldn't back out. He didn't seem super thrilled but was okay with it. Hehe. I tried to not laugh when he told his friends he should be back to play their game online in about 2 hours. So we dropped off the kids and he asked me which was to drive. We got started and passed the first big commercial area west of his sister's house. Then we passed the second big commercial area.
Then I made the mistake of suggesting we stopped to get some gas (we had about half a tank). In a rather unhappy voice, Jacob informed me that we were driving farther than we could get on the gas we had. So then in a rather timid voice I asked him if he was sure because I already paid for the room at Caesar's Palace. Silence.
Then he told me that he doesn't believe me. I tell him yes, I made reservations for us in Las Vegas. He still doesn't believe me. So I pull out the confirmation email I printed (for this very purpose) for him to see. More silence. Then he stops for gas. :-)
To cut this narrative short (and because I don't have many pictures to break it up) he was surprised. Very surprised. And when Jacob gets surprised (as I mentioned in the Christmas post), he goes quiet. He was quiet for a while. :-) Hooray! I completely shocked him!!!
We had a nice, quick drive over to Vegas and had a wonderful time. I was sad they didn't have a room in the tower that overlooks the Bellagio fountains like I wanted but because they didn't, we were upgraded to a HUGE suite. I think that suite was bigger than either condo we lived in when we were in Utah. It was awesome. We ate a fantastic dinner at Mesa Grill (habenero lobster tacos = heaven), saw The Host (which was great), walked around the pools at Caesar's Palace, went shopping at the Forum Shops, and had lunch the next day at Burger Bar where I got this completely fantastic salted caramel milkshake. The drive home was a bit longer because there was an accident on the highway coming back into Phoenix but we still made it back in plenty of time. All around, quite a lovely 36 hour date. And Jacob LOVED it. :-)
Here's just a couple pictures of our fabulous hotel room. I'm sure we'll never stay in anything quite that swanky again for quite some time.
*
1. His cashmere robe - Christmas present.
2. His surfing lesson - Christmas present.
3. His music box/jewelry box - Christmas present.
Yes, I've developed that much of a pattern. See why I'm bad at surprises??
1 comment:
I hear you, surprises are hard. I thought Alex was going to force my hand on his Christmas surprise. Thankfully when we went to "just see if they had any Wii U's" they were keeping them in the back somewhere instead of on the shelf and so Alex figured they were just sold out and didn't bother to ask.
Post a Comment