I’m married to a master surpriser.

For our one year dating anniversary I came home from my last final exam to find my apartment covered in flowers. I mean covered. My roommate and I shared a one bedroom place but every square foot of that thing was decked out in roses and peonies. He was standing there with our itinerary for week in Jamaica and said “pack your bag, we leave for the airport in two hours.***”

For our honeymoon he told me nothing but “pack warm” and planned, alongside the best travel agent in the world, a phenomenal trip to Bora Bora, Fiji and Australia (where it was actually winter, and freezing.) He’s since planned the best trips to Napa, Sonoma, St. Tropez, Paris, and so on, but since having kids, I’ve fully taken over the trip planning. I LOVE planning vacations and enjoy every single step of the process; the researching being the best part. That’s why it was so special when he surprised me two weeks ago with a card and a small gift.

If you’ve been following along on my Instastories, you’ll know we’ve committed to actually leaving the house for date night once a week for the first time since having kids. Aside from the many times one of our family members babysat for us while we were visiting, we had only intentionally hired a babysitter here at home a handful of times and guys- it wasn’t working. We’re just over a month in and we’ll never look back!

I won’t go into all the details of how he surprised me, but I will say I thought the gift was a Christmas DVD and I was absolutely ELATED. You can probably guess how many levels that elation jumped when I finished the card and unwrapped one of Oshiolema’s favorite books, ‘All Aboard New York City.’ He had snuck fun things in the pages like tickets to Hamilton and a boxing match, our hotel reservations (at a hotel I had been talking about weeks earlier) and let me know his parents were scheduled to fly in to hang out with the kids which is just the absolute best part. This is our first trip away since having two kids and it’s just time, you know?

We’re taking the train tomorrow and while I still have the last bit of prepping to do to get the babes, the house and the blog all squared away before we leave, I have genuinely been bubbling over with excitement for the past two weeks! It’s the best of best worlds- he got to surprise me with the trip (his favorite thing ever) and I got to get to work right away planning the trip (my favorite thing ever.)

I’ll be sharing lots of our time away here in the coming weeks, but you can catch it real time over on Instagram. I’ve scouted out way more than we can jam in during our trip because lets be honest- when you’re a plant-based couple headed to a city with all.the.vegan.desserts…you need to get organized. Food comes first, friends.

What are your New York at Christmastime favorites? If you’re local, what are your December secrets? Can I say I’m so excited one more time?

 

***I need to quickly say that my first response was, “This is amazing! But I’m so sorry, I can’t go. I’m not allowed to go on a trip with my boyfriend.” I bust out laughing every time I think about that. I was 19! He and I vowed not to sleep together until marriage, I had very cautious and protective parents and there was no part of me that could envision this vacation being an actual thing. Turns out, he had taken my parents out to dinner months before and told them he wanted to propose in Jamaica, also asking permission to take me there. Phew. I’ll probably never stop being embarrassed of my reaction.