National Day of Love

February 14th. A national holiday retailers of chocolate, flowers and wine probably appreciate more than the consumers.

To begin the day, I made some Valentine cookies for my basketball team,
which they were all eager to get after our game. Sometimes I think they are more interested in the post-game snack than the actual game, but at least we're making progress each week.

Valentine's Day used to be regarded as my least favorite holiday. I'm not really a fan of someone feeling obligated to show affection, just because the world tells them they are supposed to. Aren't we supposed to be celebrating the ones we love and making sure they know it every day?

But, two years ago, my feelings for Valentine's Day were forever changed. For any of you who know us well, you have heard the story of what we think was our first "real" date - the first time we actually made plans in advance to spend time together without the rest of our "Aggie Family", and completely unrelated to school. And, you have probably heard Brandon or Calli give me a hard time for the comment I made afterward, telling my sister it was an "A-Mazing night", when she asked how it went. (By the way Calli, you were never supposed to tell him I said that.)

Over our Valentine's dinner on Saturday, prepared by Brandon,
we talked about how far we had come in the past two years, although we had different perspectives. To me, "two years" sounded like a long time, but our first date didn't feel like that long ago. He seemed to think the words "two years" didn't sound that long at all, but it felt like we had been together "forever" since then...I'm not really sure how I should feel about that.

Other than that little conversation, we had a delicious dinner at our favorite place to be - home, and just felt blessed to be there, together.

Our families also made us feel very special, although there is no surprise here. From Dean and Rayanne, Brandon got one of his favorite candies (Whoppers) and some other goodies, and I got the adorable letter box, with some stationary and an Almond Joy we're still debating over. My parents sent a box of six huge, delicious chocolate covered strawberries, and the lovely tulips and irises (someone correct me if that's not what those purple flowers are) that joined the daisies Brandon had waiting for me at dinner.Anyone else have a good Valentine's Day?