Valentine's Day 2013

I can't believe I didn't take any pictures yesterday! And it was a pretty good day for all of us here. Despite not planning to go out, I ended up needing to buy eggs and a couple of other ingredients for dinner. My nemesis, FreshCo, had cheese on a crazy sale, but by the time I checked the flyer, the sale was over. They run their sales Thursday to Wednesday, those weirdos. Forget driving out of my way, I thought. It was such a beautiful day that we didn't need the plastic stroller cover!  We had a lovely walk to Sobeys, and got home just before lunchtime.

Hannah and her husband were babysitting for the girls that evening, and I wanted to make them something extra-special. We'd had chicken pot pie together last week, and homemade chicken pot pie is not the kind of thing you usually have time to whip up at the end of the work day. They both loved it so much that they wanted to have it again this week. I made them an extra one to take home. For dessert, I made the dough for the chocolate brioche pretzels- Smitten Kitchen cookbook strikes again! AND I used this amazing full-fat butter that my friend Sarah had brought me at Thanksgiving. They are now all gone, although I do still have half the butter left.

My mom came over unexpectedly in the late afternoon with Valentine's Day prezzies for the girls: plush flowers and red and pink Smarties, as well as a loaned copy of Happy Valentine's Day, Charlie Brown. She left after Hannah arrived, and once I finished dinner preparations, I got ready to go as well. I was meeting Hubby at Som Tum Thai downtown, a sister restaurant of our favourite, Anna Thai. Som Tum just happens to be around the corner from Hubby's office. I got there a few minutes early for our 6pm reservation and I was wearing makeup AND earrings!

They are so speedy at Thai restaurants, in my experience! It helps that we always order the same things: crispy duck with sticky rice for me, beef pad ki mow sans beansprouts for Hubby.  We're rarely there for more than half an hour, unless we're with friends. So it was a 6:30 that we found ourselves heading out to the car. We drove to the Market, parked and walked to Oh So Good, a dessert cafe that I went to a lot in my late teens/early twenties. It's very decadent and probably best suited to special occasions only, at least for us! He had crème brûlée cheesecake and I had chocolate raspberry truffle cake, of which I was only able to finish half. We wrapped up the evening with a couple of episodes of Gilmore Girls. Oh, and I forgot to mention the best part! Hubby surprised me a gift of on-sale cheese, not from FreshCo. A truly lovely day.