Happy Valentines Day

Our Valentines was pretty laid back this year. We had a pre-valentines lunch date in Draper on Thursday because David has been working at a client close by, but is headed to a client further away on Monday - so we had to take advantage of how close he was! Valentines Day was the perfect excuse. Lydia and I headed out just before noon and less than fifteen minutes later we were picking up David. It was incredible and I loved it so much! We went through the drive through at Carl's Jr and then headed to the Costa Vida down the street. Lydia had fallen asleep in the car and was giving David some good loves while I was ordering my food (Sweet Pork Salad anyone? Yummmm.) We had a nice lunch and we loved being able to see David in the middle of the day!

We decided to extend our celebration and stopped at McDonalds for some ice cream. I told David that I wanted a kiddie cone, and he didn't believe that they would sell me one. But I made him ask and they totally did. 25 cents baby! It was awesome. Our ice cream was the perfect end to our little date.  

Our Valentines budget had originally been decent, but after we had to order two blog books instead of one it was had pretty much decided not to do any gifts for Valentines Day. Technically our budget was $5 per person, but we had been really busy this week - and we'd both said that we were going to keep it low key this year. I decided that I'd make him a yummy heart-shaped breakfast, and then last minute I picked up a $5 gift card to Sonic because I wanted to make him happy. Then the morning of Valentines Day, I came downstairs to find a little wrapped package with a super sweet note attached to it. Among other things, it said "I love that you love to introduce me to new things that I love, but never knew about. I love when you introduce me to new books that we love. And, I love when they turn those books into movies because I love to cuddle with you." My present was the DVD of Enders Game, which is one of my very favorite books. We didn't see it in the theaters, because we were waiting for it to come out on DVD so we could watch it on our clear-play. I was so surprised and excited. I hope that the movie lives up to our expectations, but mostly I'm just grateful for a boy who knows me so well. 

I watch Carson and Elsie on Friday mornings, and so I decided to make the kids a special Valentines breakfast of pink french toast. Lydia and Elsie loved it - but Carson couldn't get past the red color. We colored Valentines and frosted some cookies for the Coopers to take home with them. 

Something that we really like to do is celebrate days/events that are meaningful to us. We try not to get too caught up into the commercialism of Valentines Day - because I really chafe at the idea of having to celebrate "love" by spending lots of money on one day of the year. However, I do love David - and I love Lydia - and I love celebrating things that are special to me. Valentines Day holds a special place in our hearts because it is the day that brought us together. It's the day that some sweet boy at Utah State saw me on campus, listened to my grump-filled spiel about Valentines, and (instead of running away as fast as he could) made me brownies and came to my shift at work in the Sci-Tech to keep me company. It's the day that we first connected, and it marks the day that we started down the path to falling in love. So commercialism aside, this really is a day that should be circled in a heart on our calendar. I think that I'll tell our children that we are celebrating the day, because it's the day that Mommy and Daddy first fell in love, and that everyone else just wants to celebrate, too. Haha. (Oh, and I should probably mention that this Valentines Day is the 1-year mark on closing on our house! I can't believe it's been a whole year.) All in all we had a very relaxed, but very happy, Valentines Day celebrating the things that are special to us.