Mom's Time to Talk: A weekend to remember!

My loving husband spent the last 3 months planning a special surprise weekend for when he came home. Unfortunately it could not be a surprise as to the weekend but all of the details of the weekend were a huge surprise. Since he was gone and wasn't sure who the kids would be comfortable staying with, I did set up childcare but it was so worth it!
Saturday morning, Christian had soccer pictures and a soccer game (more on that and photos in another blog). Upon getting up, we noticed it was raining and had hoped the game would be rained out because we needed to be in Tokyo and at our destination by 2:30 and Christian's game was scheduled for 11:30. We took him for his soccer photos at 10:30 and wouldn't you know it, it stopped raining and the game was still on. We let him play half the game and then we had to get moving. He was thrilled with that because he got to play AND he was getting to go to his friend Matthew's house to stay the night!

After dropping the kids off to our friend's house, we hopped on the train for Tokyo. Jeff gave me the directions because he doesn't know the train system that well and after many trips for modeling shoots and auditions, I knew them pretty well. The directions didn't tell me exactly where we were going, just how to get there. In any case, an hour and some change later and we were hurrying into the New Sanno Hotel in Tokyo. The New Sanno is one of the only American hotels in Japan and they only have about 145 rooms and service several bases around this area. People go to this hotel just to get a little vacation. Needless to say, getting in to the hotel requires reservations several months in advance!

The reason for the rush to get there by 2:30 was because my awesome husband had made reservations for me to get a manicure and pedicure at the hotels' salon! What a surprise!! He is so awesome! While I was being pampered, he went and checked us in, put all of our stuff away and set up the room. He then came down to see if I was done and brought me a rose. He says that there were supposed to be 9 but the florist only had 4 of the 9. This whole event was to celebrate our nine year anniversary that occurred back on July 8th while he was deployed.

After being pampered, we dressed for dinner (which he had already made reservations) at the hotels' Wellington restaurant. This is one of those "fancy" restaurants that have a set attire and only have about 10-15 tables. Our table was in one of those little corner booths with the fabric on the walls and curtains tied back at the entrance. Very pretty! We had a 6 course meal that vividly resembled many courses served on Food Network! It was awesome. However, not as awesome as what happened just as dessert was served. My adorable husband, heart-pounding in his throat, got down on one knee and proposed to me. I did not say again, because he never really got to propose that way the first time because he was deployed when we decided to get married, so his original proposal was via email. LOL! He had written this whole speech out and then decided not to read it but to allow his heart to speak for him and he did fantastic! He asked me if I would do him the honor of continuing to be his wife forever by renewing our vows next year on our 10th anniversary. Of course, I said YES!

The rest of the weekend was wonderful though not nearly long enough. We went to the Mori Art Museum which is where the Tokyo viewing center was. 52 stories up and it was a beautiful view, even though it was raining. But we think the rain knew we needed a good view because it stopped just as we got to the top and the view was so clear and crisp, it was amazing. There was also an aquarium at the top, which was gorgeous.