Steal My Valentine’s Date: Romantic Weekend on the Sunnyslope

Lemme brush my shoulder off a little bit! Three years ago , I nailed a Valentine's Date for my fiance (just a few weeks after we started dating) that he loved so much that it's now a tradition for us every year!

Until Nate and I started dating, I was never one who actually enjoyed celebrating Valentine's Day.  I was usually stuck in an endless cycle of dating the wrong guy or being single on February 14. It was hard to watch all of my co-workers have these over the top, beautiful floral arrangements delivered to the office while my desk was just littered with paperwork to get through.  This was literally what the adult version of not getting any carnations from the student council Valentine's Day fundraiser.

But Nate was my polar opposite when it came to celebrating the holiday.  I was surprised that he was such a romantic and was really looked forward to Valentine's Day, so I tried to make our first Valentine's Day together really special.

He's lived in Idaho longer than me and loves wine, so I was super surprised that he had never been to any of the wineries on the Sunnyslope Wine Trail near Caldwell.  Thanks to the Idaho Wine Run, I had and it became one of my favorite places in the state.  So I made the executive decision to surprise him with a visit to wine country! Here's how it came together:

Gather Your Supplies

I went to Gordman's and bought a cheap set of wine glasses.  I filled each of them with gold crushed glass, purple glass pebbles and put a piece of rolled up green paper inside each of them.  Each of those papers had the address of a winery or restaurant on the Sunnyslope.  I loaded each glass into a picnic basket loaded with snack meat and cheeses.

Execute

Nate had NO idea what was going on when he started unrolling the papers.  I told him to just get in the car and drive to that address.  When we got in the car I loaded up a Valentine's Day playlist on my phone of songs that we both really loved.

SURPRISE!

That year our day took us to samplings at three wineries that weekend.  I picked Bitner, Koenig and Ste. Chapelle but there are over a dozen wineries on the Sunnyslope.  We enjoyed tastings at all three and an awesome chocolate fountain at Ste. Chapelle.  The last address in the basket was Orchard House, a few miles down the road.  We enjoyed a dinner at the cute, country restaurant before heading home.

If you're planning to do the EXACT same date that we did, you're in luck! This upcoming weekend is Wine and Chocolate weekend on the Sunnyslope and most of the wineries have something special planned for the occasion.  I'll share what the wineries are uncorking for this year with you tomorrow!