STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

My husband and I were dating for about a month when he turned 30.  I wanted to get him something special, but something cool and not too mushy or anything, so I found on eBay a Time Magazine from the week he was born.  It was like 5 bucks or something, but it's really cool.  It's just neat to see what was going on when he was born (the week of his birth was the week the Israelis were killed at the Munich Olympics, so it was slightly depressing) but it's neat to see the ads and the important events at the time.  I'd still like to get it mounted and framed and hung somewhere (maybe that will happen for his 40th in 7 years.  )

I also took him to Asheville that weekend to see the Biltmore Estate.  We spent a night there, went out to a nice dinner, did a tour of the Biltmore the next day, and then drove back to my apartment that night.  He still says it was the best birthday he's ever had.  Maybe there's some place cool near you guys that he'd never been that wouldn't take a lot of time out of his schedule, or what about going to a really posh hotel in Chicago?

Is there a winery anywhere near you? I've always thought a weekend away with wine tours would be awesome.

Does he have a favorite city? Maybe you could go up to NYC for a weekend and see a show or something? (Although I'm not too sure a weekend to NYC would be "away" for peeps in Chicago! It might be basically the same thing.)

If I think of anything fabulous, I'll edit.

does he drink wine? a cool idea i've seen done is to get a bottle of wine from the year the person was born--this can be an extremely expensive gift, though.  but it's cool!

i like the surprise weekend trip idea too.  have you guys been to palm springs?  it's a great winter destination, especially if you're coming from the cold.  it's a very mellow place - you can sit by the pool and relax, get massages and have a really nice dinner.  and there's not much to do there other than the relaxing bit so you really only need a weekend.

if you're interested, look into flights to palm springs or ontario - palm springs airport is a lot closer but sometimes you can find really cheap fares to ontario.  let me know if you want recommendations on places to stay!

what's you price range?  most of the hotels are large resort style places with lots of pools.  3 of the larger hotels are the marriott, the hyatt and the westin - i've stayed at all of them, they're nice, all are ginormous and though there might be a lot of kiddies, they all have really nice pool areas.  i've also stayed at miramonte - it's like a scaled down version of the above hotels, quieter and little more intimate, but also less exciting pools. 

http://grandchampions.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/

http://www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/search/hotel_detail.html?propertyID=1008

http://marriott.com/property/propertypage/PSPCA

http://www.miramonteresort.com/

there's also the parker le meridian, which has gotten a lot of buzz in the last couple of years after jonathan adler led a big renovation.  a friend stayed there recently and said it awesome - totally old hollywood kitsch, but in a very tongue in cheek kind of way. i would guess that it's probably more expensive than the others. 

http://www.lemeridien.com/usa/palm_springs/hotel_us1817.shtml

do you have to go in march?  i'm not sure if the weather will definitely be warm enough by then (it will be HOT by chicago standards, but i'm not sure if it's pool weater).  by april the weather will likely be gorgeous.  you may want to post separately about palm springs and see if people have been in march and if it's warm enough and what other hotels they can recommend - there are tons of hotels.

also, you'll probably need a car since a lot of the resort-style hotels are actually outside of palm springs, in rancho mirage or indian wells and you may want to drive in to palm springs for dinner, shopping, etc..  ooooh, and there is also an AMAZING outlet just outside of palm springs!

if you do decide to go, i can give recommendations for places to eat as it gets closer.

If I can't swing the trip idea, what do you ladies think of me buying him a new guitar?  This past summer, I was in a guitar store w/him and he was drooling over the aucostic guitars...maybe that'd be an idea?  I know it would mean a lot.

NCshopper wrote:

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I think if you can't swing a trip, a guitar would be a great idea!  I'm sure he would love it.  However, instead of picking one out for him, I'd definitely have him go with you and pick out the one he really likes.  I think guitar buying can be very tricky and there's a personal preference aspect of it too.

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Yeah, ITA ncshopper!  There's no way in hell I could pick out a guitar for him - he'd probably be like what the hell is this thing - LOL.  Is there a cute way I could present the fact that I'm going to take him to pick one out for his gift?  I want there to be some element of surprise.

shopchicago33 wrote:

. Yeah, ITA ncshopper!  There's no way in hell I could pick out a guitar for him - he'd probably be like what the hell is this thing - LOL.  Is there a cute way I could present the fact that I'm going to take him to pick one out for his gift?  I want there to be some element of surprise.

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Get him a pick...then have him go with you to "pick" out his guitar....you could also put the pick inside a mixed cd, i know mixed cd's are so high school, but i still love it when someone makes me one...

I know I am coming into this discussion really late (sorry), but I think the guitar is a perfect idea!  He will never expect it.  I like the pick idea.  I also think you could just stop by the guitar store one day while shopping or doing errands and all of a sudden, just be like "Oh, I thought I would get you a guitar for your birthday, so pick one out," or something.