We've come a long way.

We've come a long way since the first Valentine's Day the Pastor and I had together. That year, 2005, the Pastor's Valentine to me was an email.

He emailed me a picture of a Hello Kitty toaster he had given me a few weeks earlier. The subject line of the message said "here." There was no text in the body of the email, just the attached picture.

I'm still not sure why I didn't break up with him then. In my defense, I was a very busy woman working a kajillion hours a week. Too busy to kill him or dump him, so he got lucky.

The Pastor took me out this past weekend for our belated Valentine's Day celebration.

We stayed in our city but went downtown. Isn't everything better downtown?

The day started off with the Pastor taking me for coffee and a pedicure.

I hadn't had a pedicure in two months. I've been a DIY gal lately. Getting pampered was heaven. The Pastor sat in a massage chair next to me and did his own version of pampering - he read Hebrew. To each his own.

I wore a sexy blue dress - not a Goodwill find but a bargain. I picked up the $128 dress for $19.00. Somehow, I managed to not get a picture of me wearing the thing. I can only assume the Pastor didn't want too many people to see how good I looked for fear that a picture like that could only go viral on the internet.

Here's our lovely hotel room:

My only complaint about the whole weekend would be that I don't like King beds. They are too big, allowing the Pastor to escape from my schooching.

I gave the Pastor his Valentine:

What can I say? When he's not sewing, he loves his silicone kitchen gadgets. This one was purchased in the post-Valentine clearance at Target. That's the bonus of celebrating holidays late - half off!

We watched movies on the laptop:

His picks, rented from the library, included one about monks who all get killed and a silent movie. I thought my Redbox movies would prove to be superior, but they really weren't.

We went out to dinner at our favorite restaurant:

In the pic it looks like we were super classy people who didn't eat the last bite of ice cream, but I can assure you after the picture was taken we did.

The fun continued the next morning. My Prince Charming took me to see an exhibit at the art museum:

And of course there was more coffee:

It was a lovely weekend. The Pastor said he hoped I enjoyed it, he probably wouldn't be free again until June.

I'll take what I can get - as long as it's not another picture of a toaster. He knows better now. If he tries a stunt like that again, he'll be toast for sure.