Dave and I celebrated a low key Valentine’s Day this year, making time for a date night out on Sunday.  And while Dave had the luxury of a 3 day President’s Day weekend, technically, I did not.  To solve this horrible injustice, I put my vacation days to a good use and took the day off.

After some deliberation about what we should do with our free day, we came up with the great cheap date idea of going to the Shedd Aquarium, which is hosting free admission this week.   Unfortunately, we were not the only people with this brilliant idea.  It turned out that the wait to get into the aquarium was pushing 2 hours.

Dave and I promptly agreed that we are not cheap enough to stand out in the cold for 2 hours, and we paid full price to get into the Field Museum.

So, instead of learning about fishies, we learned about dinosaurs…

And found conclusive evidence of alien presence in ancient North American Indian tribes…

And when it was closing time at the Field Museum, the line for the Shedd Aquarium, which was staying open late to accommodate the crowds, was non-existent.

We did get to see fish after all, but a formidable mad-dash through a few main attractions would best describe our visit.

On walking into the aquarium, however, someone approached us with extra tickets to Fantasea, the dolphin show.

We were excited to see the show…for free…but it was honestly a disappointment.  It’s really just a rock concert style theatrical performance, to which any non-deaf person should bring earplugs.  It includes a plant child and mother in the audience who by “random luck” participate in the show, flying canoes, grown men dressed as fairies and an occasional animal.  While the animals are cool, they make up about 25% of the show.  My sister, Amy, tells me this is how things go at Seaworld, but I’ve never been.  I prefer the old school dolphin tricks on crappy bleachers at the zoo.

Fantasea may be best described by one of Dave’s favorite web-comic authors who lives in Chicago and recently chronicled an hourly comic which includes a reference to the show.  Check out the 6:38 PM time slot.

Dolphin light show complaints aside, we had a really great day.

Especially when things are busy and it’s cold out, it’s easy for Dave and me to focus on the daily chores and get in the rut of our own habits.  We need to make more of a conscious effort to get out of the apartment and do something different on occasion, lest we become too grouchy and reclusive.  Turns out married people should go out on a date every now and then!

#96 – Spend a lazy weekend day at the Art Institute of Chicago with Dave.

Is it still a Valentine’s Day date when you have to drag your husband (and yourself, for that matter!) out of bed early on a Saturday morning?

Well, that is exactly what we did.

We are members of the Art Institute.  This means that we can show up an hour before opening time and get into the Art Institute and all of the special exhibits free of charge.  We thought that we would be able to casually view the current Edvard Munch exhibit, taking our time and enjoying the exhibit as members.  Well, it turns out that there are a lot of other members.  We enjoyed the exhibit, but had to push our way through the crowds.

And much to my disappointment, they did not have The Scream - the painting, but only The Scream - the black and white lithograph.  I turned every corner in the exhibit looking for the painting, holding out hope until the end.  Dave gave up hope as soon as we saw the tiny little black and white lithograph.  Different versions of the painting have been stolen, damaged, put up for ransom and recovered by the Norwegian police.  So what?  I still thought it would be there.  And I had my expectations set pretty darn high after admiring The Scream – the 8 ft. tall inflatable doll at the touristy gift shop across the street.

The “lazy” part of this goal came after the Munch exhibit when we wandered around the museum, ate lunch and admired all of the great works of art that were closest to benches.

I was cleaning out old boxes a couple of weeks ago and I found this Valentine’s Day card that Dave gave me in college, a very long time ago.  It’s too bad that I had no idea that Artoo-Detoo equaled love way back then.

Happy Valentine’s Day!