Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching! What will you be doing this romantic holiday?

If you’re single, I suggest you enjoy every minute of it and celebrate YOU! Run to your favorite spa and give yourself some pampering. Or better yet, cook a super healthy meal, enjoy a glass of the bubbly and cuddle up to your pet while you write down the top 3-5 things you want in your next relationship.

(BTW Vasco was my Valentine’s date FOREVER lol. Poor little guy- he was sooo happy when I met Anton. Vasco got a break!)

If you’re just starting to date, I suggest you CHILL OUT. Don’t worry and do not imagine a perfect movie date scenario. I guarantee you’ll set your poor guy up for failure before he’s even had the chance to think! Try a casual, upbeat, happy place to enjoy drinks or dinner. Maybe head to the movies afterwards and cuddle up to the newest chick flick. 🙂 You could always run to the gym and enjoy some one on one workout time, that’s definitely my favorite option!

SOOOO… what about spicing things up for the couple that has known each other for a year or longer? The couple that lives together? The couple that has said “I do?”

Here are some of my ideas and thoughts on just that this Valentine’s month! Now obviously, I’m basing this on my experience, so I would really love to hear what you guys think and what you’ve experienced and observed!

Anton and I have been together over four years now. We are even engaged, lol. But dating for years, getting engaged and eventually married shouldn’t mean the fabulous dating has to stop, does it?

NO NO NO NO NO!

I think one of my biggest fears is becoming the couple that gets too comfortable in their long term relationship and becomes complacent. Taking everything for granted. Becoming dull. Boring.

Yuck. Are you getting the picture?

We spend our entire lives growing as people. So why not learn to grow together and have fun doing it? Motivating each other into action via work, play and fitness. Sound good?

Using our similarities to enjoy the things we share and have in common and the differences to keep things well, interesting. Intriguing.

HOT. SPICY HOT.

Like all those jalapeños I love LOL.

After all, this is one of the biggest points of my blog, Mode De Vie Fit. Helping each other figure out how to enjoy life to its fullest and get the most out of everything we do. Multitasking fitness with relaxation, play with serious work, compassion and conservation with luxury, etc. Life is give and take.

EVERYTHING IN MODERATION.

If you guys recall, I am the BIGGEST OCD ORGANIZER EVER. I mean, I drive myself crazy. Anton wants me to take some online test but I really don’t want to know how high I score LOL. So basically, I plan everything before Anton has the chance to. And you know how men are, kinda last minute, grrr.

So one day I asked Anton to start planning some fun things for us to do. You know, INITIATING things. I didn’t necessarily mean “surprise me” but well, that’s how he took it and hey, what girl doesn’t like a few surprises (unless, come to find out, you are me)?

So here we go. It’s Saturday and Anton tells me to be prepared to take the afternoon off to partake in his “surprise.” Now ladies, I don’t know about you, but I immediately get excited and start thinking about a massage or hike or some romantic sunset walk and dinner. So when he tells me to dress up, I get even more excited thinking we must be going some place elegant and charming.

RIGHT?

WRONG?

UGH!!

Those of you who know San Diego would realize that when you start driving on Clairemont Mesa blvd. towards Balboa avenue, you generally aren’t going to hit a place like Rancho Valencia or Mr. A’s. I was perplexed.

So here I am in my fancy sundress and high heels sitting in the passenger seat as we pull up to the gun range in Clairemont! I was speechless. You should have seen the look on Anton’s face. He thought he’d done such a great job surprising me. He was so excited to take pictures of me in my high heels posing with a .22 caliber gun to post on my new blog. UGH.

REALLY??

Needless to say you won’t find any of those pictures here. In fact, over my dead body HA HA. I made him take us all the way home so I could change into the appropriate clothing before entering the range. When I’m attending the theatre, out of respect for the event, I always dress appropriately. For a gun range, I feel the same way.

Sweater, tennis shoes and black pants were all I needed. Now laughing as we headed back to the range, I couldn’t help but think how different the male brain is from the female brain! Anton was thinking guns and sexy pictures while I’m thinking massages and romantic dinners.

For those of you wondering: was it fun? TOTALLY. Was it scary being inside a gun range? TOTALLY. Would I do it again? Probably. I enjoyed the new experience but I can’t say I’m dying to go back. I could probably describe the experience backwards and say it would be like me bringing Anton to my barre class.

I appreciate the newness and the fact that he took the initiative. I also love a challenge and learning how to aim for such small targets with such a powerful weapon is definitely a challenge.

Now I feel like we can check that off of our couple’s “to do list” and move on!

SO let’s talk about our next adventure. This time planned by none other than ME. I planned an evening outing for us that started with sunset cocktails at a semi new rooftop bar, The Nolen. The views were incredible and after helping the bartender craft my tart, low calorie drink, we enjoyed the sunset over San Diego’s downtown buildings.

Dinner followed in Little Italy at a fairly new restaurant called Barbusa. I highly recommend this hip, authentic Italian restaurant. I found myself stealing bites of Anton’s pasta… and I don’t even like pasta! Check out the sea urchin dish they created. It’s like uni at a Japanese restaurant only served with olive oil and slices of avocado. DELICIOUS. Oh and the martinis… just the way I like them!

The last part of my game plan ended with a fun stop at The Lamplighter, a karaoke and pool dive bar. I love it here. Zero pretentiousness, it’s a super fun scene where you can be yourself, sing as horribly as I do and get away with it, and have fun playing some very bad pool (me for sure).

I might look serious, but don’t think for a second that my skills match that face! As you can see, Anton is playing his favorite role as “photographer by night.”

These are just a few examples of how we like to spice things up and make our date days and nights fun and different! I’ve definitely opted for no more surprises (LOL), but we still rotate whose turn it is to get creative in planning something edgy, new and different for us.

I think it helps keep the magic. Like when you first meet a guy and date. Why should the magic stop after a few short months? It really doesn’t have to. All that is required is two people who are in love and are willing to put a little bit of effort into each other and their relationship!

Who knows what could be next? Knowing Anton… stay tuned for more comedy…

Can’t wait to hear what you guys do this Valentine’s Day! Make it sassy, creative and fun with ZERO PRESSURE and a bit of SEXINESS!

Off to make plans!

xx Shanna