In my life, I have dated a few boys (and yes they were boys) in my life, never for a long period of time, and never on Valentine’s Day. This year for the first time, I thought I will be dating someone for V-day.  For the most part I am pretty low key; Valentine’s Day was no expectation. I didn’t want to have high expectations since I didn’t think Anthony would remember. I thought any small gesture would have put me over the moon.

Two weeks before V-Day Anthony texted me he had an idea for us on Valentine’s Day. I was in a word. . . shocked. I never thought he would be that guy to remember. I was very impressed. I still didn’t want to get my hopes up, and didn’t think too much about it. Whatever he was planning was a surprise. He was so excited and dubbed this Valentine’s Day; Pamela and Anthony’s Inaugural Valentine’s Day.  Soon after, the idea of matching t-shirts was born. The idea of the matching shirts was cute, but little did we know it would take over 15 hours to produce. I really thought it would be a quick, fun idea. Since we didn’t have experience making shirts this process took forever. In the end, the shirts came out awesome. We got a ton of comments. The shirts came out so good, people kept asking if we had them done professionally. Of course, next year we will have to make these fabulous t-shirts again! Hopefully the second time won’t be as time consuming since we know what we are doing.

The big plan was a secret, but Anthony kept slipping. I soon figured out we were going on a trip. I was so excited since I am new to LA; I have not been to many places. There are so many places I am dying to go to and explore! The Friday before Valentine’s Day, my amazing boyfriend send me a dozen red roses. The note said we were going to Santa Barbara.  I was beyond excited. I have been waiting to go there for as long as I could remember, so far V-day was off to a magical start!  

Sunday morning we left bright and early for our road trip to Santa Barbara. After an hour and a half drive, singing to the mix CD I created for our trip, we arrived at our adorable hotel a few blocks from the beach. I was beyond excited! I knew this was going to be a fabulous Valentine’s Day. Our first stop was wine tasting. Anthony mapped out the wineries we were going to go to. I was so impressed.  We started our journey ending up at various wineries; meet awesome people along the way including Sarah our first sommelier, Suzie who took our pictures, Dave the owner of the second winery, plus many more people along the way.  The first two wineries were amazing, one on one attention, not the corporate feeling. They were very welcoming, and really taught us a lot about the wines we were drinking. The last two wineries were the complete opposite. They didn’t make us feel welcome at all. They were trying to up sell us, not teach us about wine. Anthony and I were so disappointed with the Santa Barbara Winery we walked out. 

After a quick stop at the hotel, we were off to the second stop on our fabulous Valentine’s Day, a romantical sunset cruise ride with unlimited champagne. The view from the boat was amazing, the people were friendly, the seals were out, and the champagne was flowing. After a day of drinking wine, and now flowing champagne I was feeling a little sea sick. The caption was going very fast, and I was feeling the wave’s hard core. Thankfully I started to feel ill towards the end of the cruise. I was having a lovely time until this happened. I didn’t understand why the caption was going so fast to nowhere. It’s not like we had a specific destination. We took the boat to watch the sunset, and come back to the shore. Did we have to go that fast?  As soon as we were off the boat I was feeling much better!


Anthony and I spent the next day at my happy place, the beach. The weather was perfect, high 70’s low 80’s. I was overjoyed. I love the beach and sun. I kept reminding myself it’s February and we were walking on the beach. How lucky are we?!

Nearly three weeks after Valentine’s Day I am still in awe of what Anthony planned for our very first Valentine’s Day together.  I am so lucky he took his time to plan such an amazing Valentine’s Day for us. He made me feel so special. There is nothing more I have ever wanted. I am still smiling from our fabulous time!