Valentine's Day, President's Day And A Three Day Weekend

We look forward to three day weekends. We try to save as many vacation days as possible to create at least one three day weekend each month. Of course, some months have built-in three day weekends. February is one of them. President's Day makes sure of it...for Monica. Rob's job doesn't give him a holiday for President's Day but he has twenty days a year between vacation days and personal days so this seemed as good a day as any to take one of those days. Now, we both had a three day weekend together in February! 

The first thing we celebrated was Valentine's Day. Although it fell on a Sunday, we started our celebration on Friday night. Going out for dinner on Valentine's Day can be a nightmare. The restaurants are usually crowded and the waiters have a tendency to hover over you, trying to get you out as soon as possible so the table can be used for the next dinner goers. We like to celebrate Valentine's Eve but, this year, the weather forecast changed our minds. The forecast was that it would be the coldest night of the year (it was...the temperature dropped to 3 degrees with a wind chill in the minus teens) so we decided that Friday would be the start of our Valentine's celebration.

Of course, we had some Valentine's decorations strewn across the living room since the beginning of the month.

Rob had roses delivered to Monica early Friday evening. 

Then, we went to eat at Doc Lee Lau, one of our favorite Chinese restaurants. It was an easy choice since it was also an opportunity to have a late Chinese New Year celebration too. Doc Lee Lau has been around a long time and also had an old style look to the inside of their restaurant. They recently updated the decor in the dining room (sniff) but the food is just as great as always and they still serve exotic drinks in tiki mugs and volcano bowls. We each got one and shared them with each other.

It was a beautiful night and a great start to our Valentine's Day weekend! 

When Saturday arrived, we had just one thing on our minds...saling. Our list consisted of eight potential sales that we would try our best to make. It would be cold outside but not nearly as cold as the evening would be. We bundled up, got an early start and off we went! 

Sale #1 was a privately run estate sale. There was nothing specific in the description of the sale that grabbed our attention but the pictures of the inside of the house told us it was old and that was enough to put this on the list.

One trip to the basement told us what they did with every old television that stopped working. They stored it in the basement.

Here is another old television we found down there. There wasn't a lot inside this house but we did manage to find some old firecrackers from the 1970's, some old small Pyrex bowls and a few Christmas doodads and they came home with us. 

Sale #2 was one of two sales run by the most active of all tag sale companies in our area. Upon arriving, we encountered the dreaded line. It was very cold but we were bundled and we knew that we could hang on for awhile. It took us almost thirty minutes on line before we moved inside. We hoped that "Grandma's house" was worth the wait.

The basement was the greatest area of interest and we found a table down there with lots of Christmas things. Unfortunately, most were newer but we did find one or two Christmas doodads plus a Thanksgiving Gurley candle upstairs. It probably wasn't worth the wait but we were past that now and were just glad to find something! We were ready for the next stop.

Sale #3 was another privately run estate sale and it was in Rob's hometown. The ad listed collectible liquor bottles, exotic travel souvenirs and vinyl records amongst the stuff for sale. We weren't really sure what we would find but we were curious. As it turns out, there wasn't much to look through but we did not leave empty-handed. A few records, a scarf for Monica and a few other things left with us.

After stopping for lunch at the pizza place that Rob used to frequent in high school, we drove 25 minutes to the next sale on our list which was another sale run by the tag sale company whose sale we visited earlier. There was no line at this one.  

The basement had this really great bar which Rob, thoroughly, searched.

Even better than the basement bar, itself, was this companion piece...a bar lounge area in the basement that made the entertaining area perfect! 

We were glad we made this stop because a walk around the basement made it very worthwhile but we did not find anything to take home from this house. On to the next stop!

Sale #5 was in the same town as the previous stop and was run by another tag sale company we know pretty well. Like most of the day's sales, there was nothing in the ad that told us that we had to be here but the mention of a stair lift told us the occupants may have been older and there were records mentioned in the ad. It was worth a shot. Also like most of the day's sales, there was not a lot there for us. We left with a pair of ceramic Thanksgiving salt and pepper shakers and one small squirrel.

Sale #6 was in the same town as the two sales prior to this and we loved how our saling time was being maximized now. It was run by one of our favorite tag sale companies and we were hoping that "1960's Flair" would be found inside. 

There weren't a lot of rooms to search but this one was definitely worth searching! Lots of books, records and a few Christmas boxes, too! Monica (searching in the back in her green winter coat) almost blended in with the floor. By the time we were done searching, both in this room and the others, we had gathered some Christmas things and some records to take home with us.

It was getting late and we decided that we would not have time to go to the last two stops on our list. We did have time to visit Monica's dad for awhile and then we went home and rested.

On Sunday, we stayed indoors. The temperature remained frigid and we had plenty of things to do around the house. We had already gone out to dinner on Friday to celebrate Valentine's Day but there was absolutely no reason not to add a little Valentine's Day flair to our dinner on Valentine's Day, was there?

So...we had heart-shaped hamburgers! 

Monday was a day off and we decided to spend the day going to thrift shops. We didn't expect to find anything all that great but we were hoping to find Rob some sweaters for work. Some of the local thrift shops were closed for the holiday but enough were open to give us plenty to do. Although we didn't find any sweaters for Rob, we did find a coat for Monica, an old jello mold set and a few other things. 

Here are some of the things we found this weekend:

Some 12-inch records

Some 10-inch records from the House Party series of records

Some books

A pair of old sewing kits and an old ash tray from Roosevelt Raceway

An Easter duck, a pair of small Pyrex bowls, an old googly eyed shot glass and a squirrel (marked Japan) 

An old Jell-O mold kit

A coat for Monica

Thanksgiving things...ceramic salt and pepper shakers (marked Japan) and a Gurley candle.

Some unopened packs of firecrackers from the 1970's. We will set these off on the Fourth Of July but, of course, save the wrappers.

Christmas things

More Christmas things. The ceramic boots are marked Japan

More Christmas things. Each of these are marked Japan except the plastic Santa on the right

It was a three day weekend packed with lots of fun and lots of things to celebrate

We had Valentine's Day!

We had President's Day!

Most of all, we had three days with each other. That, alone, will always give us reason to celebrate...and lots of reasons to smile!