Our funny valentine

She's funny, right? Not to mention cute. It was way too fun coming up with household items that could serve as a cupid costume (the wings are {clean} dusters, the bow a broken hanger, etc.), though Danielle and Avery were the ones who first proved the suitability of a cupid costume on a baby. And yes, my baby--who still mainly subsists on milk--is energetically chewing on a licorice "arrow" in this picture. Apparentely we haven't been trying to feed her the right things. We made a rule about candy though--she only gets it while being dressed up for our amusement because then we're amused enough to not care.

Our V-day celebrations lasted several days this year and included the following:

• A final swimming lesson in heart-bedecked swimming suit (in which cupid held her breath for 8 really fast seconds!)
• A ward dance a la a 1980s prom. Awesome, in other words.
• The baking of many batches of Josh's grandma's traditional V-day maraschino cherry sugar cookies. We thought we'd done a pretty good job until we tasted his aunt's version of the same cookies. The recipe is good enough though to make often in search of perfection.
• Lots of cupid deliveries of said cookies. We would get to a relative's house with a rather boring gift nestled on Zoë's seat--a single chocolate bar or box of cheap candies. Then I would take Zoë in a back room to "nurse" her and cupid would emerge to the utter delight of everyone. Have I mentioned this was about the most fun we've ever had on Valentine's Day?
• Kissing with big chocolate lips
• A dinner at Chef's Table, a (re)gift from Josh's grandparents. This entry needs more than a bullet point to explain why it was funny.

First of all, the origin of the Chef's Table gift certificate makes me laugh and reveals much about Josh's grandparents. For a stretch of several months when Timothy was out of commission, they let us borrow one of their cars. It ended up needing a couple of new tires, which we of course paid for (it was the very least we could do). Stan and Sara found out we paid for the tires and insisted on giving the money back. Josh's family likes to do that--they waste hours foisting money upon one another and taking turns refusing it. But we outsmarted them. For an upcoming birthday, we used all $300 or whatever it was to buy them gift certificates to several nicer restaurants in the area--assuming their penchant for Sizzler and Chuck-o-Rama was born of living on a fixed income.

As it turns out, Josh's grandpa prefers the taste of cheap Chinese food to P.F. Changs and they spend so much time together already that dinner at the Chef's Table is not fun unless they have some other company to talk to. So they ended up sending us that particular gift certificate in the mail with a V-day card.

In other words, we went to the Chef's Table for Valentine's because our car broke a couple years ago.

And, frankly, though we were immensely grateful for the chance to eat out at a fancy restaurant, we didn't really think the fare at Chef's Table was our particular cup of tea. See, we never go out for American food. Indian? Always. Thai? Often. Chinese? Occasionally. Italian? yes. American? Why?

The evening began with me not realizing that the hostess was trying to push my chair in after I was seated and Josh realizing we were sitting one table away from the infamous Curt Bramble (the only Utah State Legislator who inspires in us equal measures of dislike, disgust, and disagreement). Then our server brought out these white balls of something in champagne glasses accompanied with spoons. Well, the spoons were brought at the same time but may have been for dessert? We were mystified. We looked around us in vain for clues and watched the blobs fizzle and melt.

We spent a long time poring over the menu. Lots of meat--which one of us doesn't eat and the other one doesn't usually like. And all of the dishes uninspiringly American sounding. We finally settled on a couple and made the accompanying soup selections.

Even though we both jumped the gun by trying to take off the soup bowl lids ourselves (oops!), one spoonful in to our tomato and butternut squash soups we were floored. How can soup taste so good? Okay, butter and cream may be the answer, but wow. It didn't matter what else happened, our Valentine's was made. The soup gave us the courage to drink the fizzy melted white blobs when the waiter wasn't looking and bust up when Josh suggested that the strange citrusy substance may have been hand sanitizer supplied for a pre-dinner finger wash. We decided American food of a certain caliber isn't so bad after all.

While "funny" was a fitting adjective to attach to Valentine's 2009, the holiday was also filled with a large heaping share of sweetness and that kind of love that is not limited by conditions.