Valentine's Day our own way

It's always fun to log onto Facebook and Blogger on Valentine's day, and see all the individual ways each couple celebrates that holiday dedicated to love. Some people utterly disdain the holiday, claiming it is simply an excuse to spend money and sell cards. Others are seemingly obsessed with it, spending oodles of money on lavish gifts and weekend getaways. I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I'll be the first to admit, I absolutely love Valentine's Day. I always have, even those days in high school when I fell into deep bouts of sadness after discovering that no secret boyfriend had left a bouquet of flowers in my locker. But I've always loved it in a more homemade way.

From my infancy, my family has always made Valentine's Day a special day. Each year, us girls would make a mess of the kitchen table, strewing it with doilies, stickers, red and pink construction paper, and flowers cut out from gardening magazines. We'd spend the whole afternoon making special cards for each other. Then, on Valentine's morning, we'd wake up to find three vases of roses waiting on the kitchen table, one rose for each daughter. We'd quickly hand out our own Valentines to eachother, and the rest of the day we'd go about our regular business accompanied by that love you can always count on, the love of family. And even in high school, stung from never receiving that spontaneous declaration of love from a stranger, my broken heart mended quickly,  because each and every year I knew that I would always have the love of a special man, tangible in the rose waiting for me at the breakfast table every year from my pappy. And this year, all the way in Langley BC was no exception--I have a special vase of roses on my table from my pappy.

When I reached college and met a certain red haired man, Valentine's day grew even more special. During my freshman year, I awoke on Valentine's day morning to this note on the desk in my dorm room, asking "Will you go out to dinner with me? Check yes or no, either way be ready at 6." Naturally, I said yes. And at 6 pm sharp he met me at the door bearing a bouquet of yellow roses and my favorite Hershey Hugs. And the rest is history :) I've always been amazed by his actions that day, wondering if he knew that in that note and bouquet of roses he was not only making me fall in love with him, but also fulfilling 19 years of Valentine's Day fantasies. From then on, we counted February 14 as our anniversary, and the holiday grew from just dreams and family to include a celebration of love for the man I'll spend my life with. We've always tried to make it a special holiday for the two of us, and had to find a way to make it a holiday to say I love Us (yes, I'm borrowing that from a Hallmark commercial, but it's really a lovely commercial :) makes me cry every time).

This year, we celebrated with a special meal--he was in charge of dinner, I was in charge of dessert. For my dessert, I tried my hand at an American classic:

Pineapple upside down cake! According to Julia Child, this cake takes courage, as you never know if it'll come out of the pan when it's finished. As you can see, mine slid right out so fast I didn't even have time to center it on the plate correctly! So bravo to me :)
 Jared treated me with an experimental Italian concoction including spinach, cheese and lasagna noodles. It wasn't quite pretty, but it was delicious, and that's what really matters. Hope everyone's Valentine's day was magical!