My first Valentine’s Day as a wife was one I will never forget. I’ve been wanting to go to a beautiful place called Catalina Island for about FOREVER and my loving husband planned us the perfect getaway as a Valentine’s Day surprise for me!

We decided that post wedding, we were going to throw all of the money we’d spend on holiday gifts into our Honeymoon fund, so that’s what we’ve done so far this year and we specifically decided that was what we would do for Valentine’s Day as well.

Well, I have a pretty sneaky (and unbelievably amazing) husband who changed his mind and decided to knock Valentine’s Day out of the park.

I got home around 6 pm on Friday night and walked in to a beautiful bouquet of purple roses (my favorite) and a card. I opened the card to read the most thoughtfully written card (which made me cry) and then saw two tickets to the Catalina Flyer (the boat that you take from Newport Beach to get to Catalina Island) and a confirmation print out from the Pavilion Hotel on Avalon Bay.  I immediately started bawling and was SO surprised and excited for our weekend. I cannot believe Joey made all this happen and planned it all without me suspecting a thing.

We finished the evening cooking dinner together and then immediately got to packing!

Our boat to Catalina left Newport Beach at 9:00 am and we had to be there by 8:30 am for check in, so it was a pretty early morning. Once we got on the boat, we decided to sit at the very top to enjoy the ocean views as we traveled. We even ended up seeing a pod of dolphins! It was an hour boat ride from Newport to the Avalon port of Catalina Island and once we got there, I couldn’t wait to start adventuring around the island!

I’m going to break down our Catalina Island itinerary in the next post, so stay tuned!

I hope everyone else had an amazing Valentine’s Day weekend with their loved ones!