Some enchanted evening

We are not great celebrators. Yes, we go out to dinner sometime within 2 weeks of our anniversary, but that's about it. We never celebrated 1 month together, 6 months, a year, when we met, when we got engaged (which was about when we met), or anything romantic like that. Even birthdays are kind of low-key. I bought my own present.

But one tradition that Rob decided when we were first married was that on Valentine's, we would have a nice, really gourmet, dinner together. With my lack of cooking passion, this tradition would have gone by the wayside. But no, every year Rob comes up with a fantastic menu, he has even gone grocery shopping in years past, and he does most of the cooking. One V-day, he even bought a blow-torch to make creme brulee (my husband knew I have a thing for food on fire). This year, he came home early (which was a feat in itself) and made a fantastic parmesan chicken over pesto and angel hair pasta. Asparagus with a sauce that called for 3 sticks of butter (he did not use that much, but obviously was delicious... I was scraping my plate). And then for dessert, we had parfait. Oh, it was fabulous! The kids loved it to... we ate a WHOLE MEAL with them only getting up off the table once. Okay, maybe twice... but only twice. We ate by candlelight (this was on principle... not quite so romantic when a child kept complaining that it was too dark) and listened to Rachmaninoff.

Then my man surprised me by suggesting we watch Enchanted April, the movie, he reminded me, that we saw our first Valentine's Day married. And he rubbed my feet. In the words of the movie, Moonstruck, "isn't it romantic!" (sounds a lot better when the cute old man in the movie is singing it).