Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays, along with Thanksgiving and the solstices. I love celebrating love and gratitude because I don’t think anyone can ever have enough of either. My husband and I don’t usually give each other gifts on Valentine’s Day. We instead spend the entire weekend (or the whole week if we are traveling) celebrating our love. We put away our phones and make it a point to spend real time together, looking back on some of our happiest days spent together. Here’s how we celebrated this year!
Our first day of celebrations started by having brunch at our favorite local breakfast spot. We shared raw, organic juices, açaí bowls, and fair trade coffee that kept us warm. After that, we went and got Thai massages from a spa recommended to us by some friends. I’d heard of Thai massages, where they walk on the recipient’s back using silk ropes to steady themselves, but neither of us had ever had them before. It was sort of strange at first, and I had to stop myself from giggling at how weird the experience was because no one had ever walked on me or used their heels to work out knots in my back before, haha, but it was seriously one of the best massages I’d ever had, and I’d definitely go back.
After our massages, we went to a socially distanced hot vinyasa yoga class to work out some of the stress we’ve been feeling. We are getting ready to make a pretty significant life change, so I wanted to go back to practicing yoga more often to stay limber and prevent life’s stresses from weighing too heavily on us. Neither of us has been sleeping super well lately, and this much-needed workout helped us sleep peacefully later that night, which I was so thankful for.
Once the class finished and we had freshened up, we spent some time at the Detroit Institute of Art admiring their recent additions and our favorite paintings in the area. There’s not much else to do in Michigan during the icy cold weather we’ve been having that ruined our plans of snowshoeing and hiking this weekend, (this time last year before heading to Canada we hiked through Eben Ice Caves in the Upper Peninsula) but we made the best of it and the DIA was a great standby.
We had dinner at Joe Muer Seafood in Detroit that overlooks the Detroit River, offering guests a view of our Canadian neighbors on the other side of the border. That’s the closest we have been to Canada since we went there this time last year, right before the borders closed, and it was a bit sad to realize that we couldn’t go over to Canada to see our friends across the border, even if we really wanted to, despite being so close, yet so far. I hope things get better, and we can all start traveling again soon.
Our meal was phenomenal, and I already can’t wait to go back again someday. Their seafood was unbelievably fresh, equaling anything I’ve had freshly caught in coastal areas. A pianist played a medley of classical music and more modern tunes during our candlelit dinner, and we watched the sun sink beneath the buildings on the Canadian side of the border and toasted to the big changes we have ahead.
Ever since we stayed at Grand Traverse Resort & Spa in Traverse City, where they had an Egyptian themed escape room for guests, we’ve been a bit obsessed with escape rooms. If you haven’t done one yet, it’s a puzzle room of sorts, where participants have to use clues and their wit to solve riddles, puzzles, and clues to figure how to escape from or solve the room’s theme. The escape room we did after dinner was themed after an old-time train robbery, where we had to figure out how to stop the robbers from stealing a large cash of gold going to a settlement out West, and it was like playing a real-life video game. We finished the puzzle room with only 3 minutes to spare, and it was so much fun!
We have a few more fun activities planned this weekend, and although it’s much more low-key than other years have been, we always find ways to have fun together, whether it’s visiting museums and eating somewhere new, or having new experiences together, I think it’s so important to treat not only Valentine’s Day but every day of the year like an adventure.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
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