David Day and Terri Day

Every summer Dave and I indulge ourselves with special days meant to celebrate all we've each accomplished over the year...and to counteract any tendencies toward taking each other for granted. And plus, don't you think we all deserve more attention? Adults barely even celebrate their own birthdays! That's crazy! There should be multiple days every year where each of us holds the world back and devotes some focused time to celebrating our own unique brand of amazingness. Or, even better, allows someone else to shine the spotlight on us. So I host "David Day" and Dave hosts "Terri Day" and it's chock full o' fun! Frankly, I think I enjoy planning "David Day" even more than having my own "Terri Day." It's so fun planning a whole day around a single goal: showing someone you love how much you love them.

This year's round of "days" turned out to be more low-key than previous years...but more relaxing.

Dave woke up and was given a printed "David Day Agenda"along with a gift (books). I also made a huge breakfast for him, including eggs, sausage, butter-fried mushrooms, and homemade lemon/raspberry muffins (I got the recipe from SmittenKitchen.com, and I tell you it's freaking amazing!):

Those of you who follow this blog know that sometimes I force spa treatments on my long-suffering husband. Well....we has some left-over cuces, so I thought he might enjoy a cooling eye treatment to relax him before our day o' fun.

Then we went for a long walk at Hidden Falls and eventually enjoyed a picnic lunch (you can see some of the left-over lemon/raspberry muffins there...I wish I had one right now).

Then it was off to the MN History Center to see The Greatest Generation exhibition, the main attraction for Dave being this here armoured car. Dave sure loves armoured vehicles.

Since he loves armoured vehicles so much, I bought him this little souvenir.

Then we had a relaxing evening at home, where I made fresh salsa:

The next weekend was Terri Day, and since Dave is not as much into taking photos of every detail as I am, we don't have many photos to share of Terri Day. But Dave made breakfast in bed for me...quiche, scones, clotted cream, fresh pineapple, yogurt, and something called "wine soda." All things I love. He also bought me this beautiful bouquet:

Then we went to the Titanic exhibit at the Science Museum, had lunch on the terrace of The Liffey, and spent a relaxing evening watching a travel DVD about English villages that Dave surprised me with.

The video was hilarious (not intentionally). In one village by the sea, the tide would come and flood what looked to outsiders like a parking lot (or "car park" as they'd say). Rather than putting a sign up for visitors alerting them that it wasn't a car park, they instead just let people park there then gathered to laugh at them once the tide came in and visitors returned to find their cars underwater. They even took photos of the distressed car-owners as they struggled to move their cars, and then posted all the photos in the local pub....like a "wall of mockery." They interviewed one toothless nasty person from this village, who was like "ahh...we sympathize with the visitors, it's a tough thing..." Well, then how bout this. PUT UP A SIGN! How about doing something to stop it from happening, rather than just taking photos and laughing? Answer: it's more fun to mock. Dave called it Schadenfreude Village. In fact, every village they featured had a subtle (or not so subtle) "damn tourists" subtext. And while it was all obviously scripted, the villagers couldn't even pretend they were speaking extemporaneously...they'd insert pauses where they shouldn't be, stumble over their words, or speak all their lines in one breath: "You (pause) should-go-see-Aunt-Madge-she (very quickly, then followed by awkward pause) will set you up with a nice (long pause) pint." Anyway, it was very funny.

So, that's the story of David and Terri Days.