Considering I'm broke as hell, I sure have being doing a lot this year. I've spent the last 5 Valentine's with my kids as my dates. This year was no different. My 17 yr old got to pick out where we ate, while my 3 yr old picked out what movie we would watch. My 19 yr old works at a restaurant, so she was stuck working all evening. Mikey decided he wanted to get Pho and some Thai Ice Tea. Cheap date, but soooooo yummy. There weren't many kid movies playing at the local theaters, but we managed to find two good choices for my 3 yr old. We ended up watching Wreck It Ralph for the 3rd time. That part of the date was more expensive than the dinner. LOL!
This past weekend I went out of town for the night with a couple of my co-workers. They had been asking me to go to this wine event in Murphys, a little over an hour away. We stayed at the historic Murphys Hotel and had a balcony room. This hotel is said to be haunted, and everything looks like it's straight from the 1800s. The bathrooms and showers are community bathrooms, and authentic as well. One bathroom had a toilet that flushes from a tank near the ceiling. The whole place was really cool. 
We only made it to a handful of wineries, but that was ok. We had our own stash of wine, cheese and bread back in our room. While everyone else was downstairs dancing at the bar and downing beers, we decided to hang out on the balcony with our own music and had a party of our own. The good thing was that we paced ourselves and woke up tired, but without hangovers. 
Monday night was our girl concert to see P!nk in San Jose. Her acrobatics were amazing! 
Considering all the stressful crap happening in my life right now: issues at home, fighting with ex-husband in court again and normal day-to-day stuff, I am glad I had these things as my mental escape.
