Happy Valentine's!

This Valentine's weekend was the best! We made Valentine's last all weekend, and it was so much fun.

It started on Friday as I was scrambling around to make an appointment I had that morning. Tony had left the television on, and on my way out the door, I grabbed the remote to turn it off. There was a small lump of paper attached to the remote with a rubber band. I unwound it, and found a piece of my favorite chocolate (Dove) with a coupon for a free back rub anytime I wanted. I was then instructed to look in the Spaghetti strainer in the kitchen. To make a long story short, I was led to different places in the house finding a dove chocolate and coupon at each one. My treasure hunt ended in our "weight room" where I found tons of chocolate and a note in Bulgarian wishing me a Happy Valentine's. It wasn't anything big and expensive, but it made me feel really special.

You must be wondering if this made me late for my appointment. No, it did not. MY DEAD CARE MADE ME LATE. The night before I attended a Diva Night at a local running store and being so excited to come home and see Tony (for the first time that day) at 9pm, I left my lights on (see post before this for more information). It was okay though. I spent most of the day munching on my delicious chocolates and packing for our trip.

Friday night we headed off for St. George. Tony's parents have a time-share condo down there, and it just so happened that their time fell on Valentine's weekend this month. We were happy to get away to a warmer, sunnier place for the weekend.

My only request on Saturday for Valentine's was that I didn't have to go anywhere. I didn't want to have to wait forever to eat an overpriced dinner. You'll have to read Tony's blog to see what we did on Valentine's day. He is a much better writer than me and his post is pretty funny.

On Sunday we decided to head down to Las Vegas and find a Bulgarian restaurant we had read about online. When we showed up there (forgetting it is an hour earlier in Vegas) we walked in on a group of old, Bulgarian men watching soccer. The smells of the food, the cigarettes, and the body odor immediately took me back to Bulgaria. Tony hesitantly said "Hi, are you open?" The old men began talking to each other in Bulgarian, so Tony switched over and asked them again in Bulgarian this time. The owner came rushing in and apologized to us that the restaurant wasn't opening until noon. Since we had forgotten the time difference, we were there an hour early! We drove around and saw some of the strip, and returned to the restaurant when it was open.

It was amazing. Our waitress let us order in Bulgarian, and it was so authentic it was almost unbelievable. Tony ordered Musaka and I ordered Pulnani Chushki (stuffed peppers--one of my favorites in Bulgaria). It was delicious. Everything about that place was Bulgarian! As we were eating I said to Tony, "I think we just found a new St. George tradition!" He agreed.

Here are some pictures of the restaurant, Magurata:

The outside of the restaurant

We were greeted by two headless Bulgars dressed in their folk dancing clothes.

See? Doesn't it look like the places in Bulgaria??

MMMmmmm, Shopska Salata!!!

After our Bulgarian flashback, we decided to walk around the strip for a little while (mostly to burn some calories!) We saw some of my favorite things like the Bellagio fountains, and Tony showed me some of his that I've never seen before, like the errupting volcano at the Mirage. The volcano was really cool to see at night and when the fire came out of the top we could feel the heat from it where we were, which was on the other side of the street!

We also walked around in the mile-long mall they have there. It was fun because on all of the pillars they have different words like love, courage, hope, etc. in different languages and we found Bulgarian! I'm sure that people thought we looked pretty strange scanning the pillars up and down, pointing, and celebrating when we were the first to find the word in Bulgarian.

"Желание"

"Страст"

It was so fun to have a little mini-vacation! I'm sad it's over now, but I'm excited to visit Magurata again!