For Heidi's birthday/Mother's day week, I decided I wanted to go all out and make it memorable. Maybe I was inspired by M. Russell Ballard's talk a few weeks ago, maybe it was an understanding that Heidi feels love through surprises and thoughtfulness, or maybe it was just good old fashioned guilt that I haven't pampered her enough during this pregnancy (lots of work, travel, b-school applications, etc.), but whatever the motive was initially it turned out to be a really fun couple of days.

Heidi already wrote about her birthday, so I've been given the assignment of writing the story of phase II of my plan (she's great at delegating, and is pretty worn out tonight). So here's what happened…

Yesterday while Heidi took a friend to the airport, I snuck in the house and set up a scavenger hunt. I'll spare you the cheesiness dripping from these clues, okay, I'll share one example…one of the clues was hidden in the microwave because she's "One Hot Mama". You get the idea. So the last clue she found led her to her sister Amber's house about 35 minutes away.

When she arrived at Amber's house, she was given a clue that said to remove a box from the trunk labeled "Top Secret". After she completed this task, the next clue basically said "Good job, scavenger hunt's over, I just needed you out of the house for a few minutes so you can go back home now and leave Jackson." Little did Heidi know that box contained everything Jackson needed to stay overnight.

She came home to see an invitation on the door to a really nice, romantic restaurant (for you Oregonians who may care, it's called the Silver Grille). How do I know it's romantic? It says right on the website that it was featured in the
Best Places to Kiss in the Northwest. Say no more.

So we traveled south to the restaurant, she still couldn't figure out what the heck was in the box she gave Amber or why we were celebrating Mother's Day on a Thursday, when we just went out the day before. It all came together when I opened up the trunk of our car and showed her that I had packed our bags for an overnight trip to Silver Falls!



Those who don't know me may not understand the significance of this moment. I believe I have what is officially referred to as severepackingaversionitis (it's not on Wikipedia yet, don't bother looking, but it's real). It's a debilitating condition where I completely freak out the night before a trip, put off packing any way I can, and basically can't function until the task is done (or done for me in some cases, sorry Mom and Heidi, and multiple mission companions, and a few roommates).

Anywho, packing is not my forte, which makes this story somewhat of a modern day version of the Gift of the Magi, only instead of giving up something I love I chose to do something I absolutely hate.

We booked a cabin (which is why we went on Thursday, all booked up for the weekend) and experienced the great outdoors. As our first camping trip together, I thought roasting S'mores would be appropriate. Unfortunately my skills as a Star Scout and Heidi's skills as a six year girls camp veteran meant nothing to the stubborn Oregon wood that just would not allow us to light a fire.



Fortunately for us, experiencing the great outdoors includes a microwave!



And electricity, so we can watch a movie. (heat was supposedly included as well, but I'm pretty sure ours was busted…in fact I laid my jeans two inches from the heater all night to have a nice warm pair in the morning…no luck)



After sleeping in (yes!) we ambitiously embarked on a few short hikes (I say ambitious because Heidi is 7 months along after all) to some incredibly beautiful falls. If you're in Oregon, reading this blog, and you haven't been to see these, go tomorrow. It's incredible.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…if you care to see the full album you can click here






What a great day…thanks Heidi for being the best wife and mother in the known world.