Tara's Valentine's Day present is:

Tara reads this thing. Do you really think I would let the cat out of the bag? (It's not a cat or a bag.)

Tara went up on Monday and got me 2 nice new white shirts for valentine's day. They are really nice, I looked halfway decent in PEC meeting last night. (Still no suit. I reserve the wearing of the suit for baby blessings, baptisms, priesthood ordinations, the Sunday session of Stake Conference, etc. All my clothes in my closet are hung with the suit as a marker. Everything to the left of the suit has been worn since I last wore the suit. Everything to the right of it has not been worn since I last wore the suit. I don't know why I do that, I just do.)

I have been castigated in the past for some of the presents that Tara gets. (Never from her, mind you, always from others...) Once for Valentine's I got her a pillow. (She really needed a new one.) I was belittled for a while until it came out that she also got flowers, a book, a nice dinner, etc. That seemed to be acceptable. (Just just fun to say I got her a pillow.) For the past couple of years, we have made a trip to Florida for Valentine's. Last year we were in Fort Meyers Beach. The year before we were in Clearwater beach. The year before that we were in Orlando. We thought about going this year, but 4 kids seemed like a lot to send off to someone to watch for us in the middle of Winter while we were in Florida enjoying ourselves, and Kate is in Kindergarten now, and would have needed to stay near here. This limited things quite a bit. So the trip to Florida is out. This means I'm back to finding presents for Valentine's.

I went to Distribution Services to get her new garments today. (No need to comment, I hear them coming, it's not ALL she's getting...) While there, I called her to check on sizing to make sure it was right. There was a lady counting items in bins to restock, I couldn't help but ask Tara how many she wanted. While she anwsered, I said "FORTY?". The lady restocking gave me a dirty look, pretty much the reaction I was looking for, but there was a lady next her who was shopping. Her eyes got really wide as if to say "40? did he just say 40?" I had to tell her I was just kidding so she would stop staring at me. She said "Oh good. I thought I would have to hurry any grab mine before you took them all." It was pretty funny.

Anyhow, this year for Valentine's she's not getting any of these previous presents:

A pillow
A clock
A card written completely in Spanish
Money
A vacation away from the girls
Balloons
A book
I'm blocking out the rest.
A single Anonymous rose. (2 times - premarriage/dating)

Anyone have any ideas?