How was your Valentine’s Day?
Or, as my single friends call it–“single awareness day”? Ours was good. Since Valentine’s Day was on a Sunday, it seemed to stretch through the whole weekend. Friday were class parties, and I was in charge of coordinating the third grade party. Jenna’s class was a lot of fun, and the party went well. While I was there, I checked out the science fair. There were a lot of soda experiments, and a LOT of popcorn experiments. Natalie ended up with a second place ribbon for our project. Yes, I say “our” project, because what kid does their own science fair project without a TON of help from their mom or dad? I’m going to see if I can get Dad to do the next one.
Friday night we did indeed watch the Olympic opening ceremonies. Wow, that’s one long program. At 10:00 I turned it off and made the kids go to bed (two of them were already asleep in the family room). When we went to watch the last hour the next day, the torch lighting was cut off. The program just went too long. But it was amazing! The kids are loving watching the Olympics. They’ll watch ANY event, no matter how boring.
Saturday was the usual kind of Saturday around here. Basketball games, and Ryan went to try to install some fun equipment at a friend’s house, then let Cole drive down to Spanish Fork to get the slide projector and screen so we can do a slide show for Family Home Evening. There were, as usual, some harrowing moments, but I was not there to freak out, so that’s good. At home we frosted Valentine cookies, the kids played and I did some puttering and cleaning up. I’m also working on some sewing for the kids’ bathroom. I’ve got the shower curtain done and now I need to work on the window treatments and pick a paint color.
I made dinner for the kids, and invited Ryan out on a DATE for valentines’ day. Big Mistake. I should have just skipped all Valentine celebrations and left that for another night. I called ahead to Texas Roadhouse, because I had heard how awesome it was. I called at 5:20 and they said “It’s about a 90 minute wait.” So, we planned on getting there at 6:30. Ha! There were THRONGS of people standing around outside the restaurant. Hordes, even. While waiting, we chatted with another couple of parents from Megan’s soccer team (who TOTALLY got in WAY before us), then had a lovely chat with a PTA friend of mine and her husband. We were checking out the “couples” that were there for the Sweetheart’s dance, critiquing the girls’ dresses, and why in the world would she wear that summer dress and those sandals to a dance in February? Anyway, we were there a LONG time. Then we saw our next door neighbor, who was there with hubby AND three kids. Her wait was looking very long, so she told me later they bailed and went to Chuck-a-rama. We persevered, however, and about 8:10, they called out our number.
Was it worth the wait? I guess. The food was amazing, and the service was FAST. They need to get you OUT of there in a hurry, to seat more guests. We enjoyed watching the busboys take over a table. It was about 90 seconds from the time one couple left until the next couple was seated. Seriously, they’ve got that system down. We ended up eating the rolls, the appetizers and the salads, and brought the steak and sweet potatoes home. Yum. I’m looking forward to eating that sweet potato for lunch.
Sunday, the actual Valentine’s day, was a JOYFUL day around here (note the sarcasm there, if you can). Ryan and I had been asked to speak in church. Groan. But, I guess it was our turn. We haven’t spoken in…I don’t really know how long. We had such a huge ward for a while, with new people moving in all the time, so the new people always got assigned to speak. We’ve been a smaller ward for about two years now, and somehow we have stayed under the radar. Until now. We were assigned to speak on Music. So I found a great talk on music by Elder Russell M. Nelson, added a few personal experiences and my own take on it, then found some additional articles and took a quote or two from each of them, and -bam- talk done. I thought it was a decent talk. But when it came time to give it, I realized I was going too long. Seriously? Too long? I NEVER go too long. I must not have been doing my customary ‘talk really fast when I’m nervous’ thing. Yay, me! So I actually had to skip over some of my talk in order to leave some time for Ryan to give his talk (after the special RS number “love at home”). My favorite quote from the whole talk was this one, President Young said, “There is no music in hell, for all good music belongs to heaven. It would be punishment enough to go to hell and not hear a note of music for all eternity.”
Anyway, the talk is done, and now we can reset the clock and hopefully not have to speak for a long long time.
After church we went up to my parent’s house for dinner. Dinner was yummy, and we had fun playing some games while Ryan earned his keep and did some computer fix ups for them.
Aside from the talk in church, it was a nice valentine’s weekend.
When we got home and the kids were in bed, it was time for some serious valentine’s day fun.
We watched the Amazing Race together. What? Did you think I was going to say something else? Get your mind out of the gutter. Did you watch it, too? What did you think? It’s too early to pick favorites quite yet, but the ditzy blondes annoy me, and I don’t really like the overly gayness of others. I really like those cowboys, though. I hope they stay in a long time. Here’s a great wrap up in case you missed it.
I guess I should have bought paint sticks for ALL of them. Anyway, so I WILL alert you all to a great deal on Heelys that’s going on right now. 
I got four pairs for certain people for under $50 shipped. Boo-Yah. Go 
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