Valentine’s Day | The Beauty Around Us

Posts tagged ‘Valentine’s Day’

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of my blog followers!

The top photograph was taken in November 2020, during our Thanksgiving week vacation in Chincoteague VA. The photograph on the left along the bottom row was taken, while on our first date, in Annapolis MD in May 1998. The bottom right photograph was taken in February, this year. Bob and I will celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary in September, this year.

Our Valentines

Stacey, Harper and June stopped in for a visit in the late morning of February 13th, staying for an hour or so. Bob and I gave Harper and June their Valentine’s Day gift–Lalaloopsy magnetic doll dress up kits.

Harper and June liked their Valentine’s Day gift

While Stacey and Bob visited with each other, I played with Harper and June. We played with the Lalaloopsy magnetic doll dress up sets; we played a game of Candy Land (Harper won); I read a couple books to them; and each girl had 5 minutes playtime on the iPad.

As Stacey and the girls were leaving, I gave Stacey a dozen cupcakes that I had made for Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day Cupcakes

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Did you have an enjoyable Valentine’s Day?

Bob and I braved a Winter storm to drive to Jamestown, NY. Our first stop was at the J.C. Penney store, where I purchased a new Winter coat. I had been waiting patiently for Winter coats to go on sale so that I could replace the coat I have been wearing, which is way too big for me. I almost waited too long. I didn’t have many coats to choose from.

I like my new Winter coat.
I especially like the fact that this coat is sized XL, whereas my old Winter coat was sized 4W!

Our next stop was for lunch at the Olive Garden. The waitress offered, and we accepted, a small sample of red wine. Bob and I made a toast “to us”, and then drank our wine. We each ordered the Citrus Chicken Sorrento entree (described in the menu as “Tender, grilled chicken breasts in a citrus honey glaze…served with lightly-seasoned broccoli, artichokes and roasted vegetables”). Our meals were accompanied by a house salad and bread sticks. The chicken and its accompaniments were excellently prepared and tasted delicious! Our meals were filling; however, we decided to splurge on dessert for two. The dessert we chose to share was the Black Tie Mousse Cake (described in the menu as “Rich layers of chocolate cake, dark chocolate cheesecake and creamy custard mousse). Dessert was decadent!

After lunch, when we walked out of the Olive Garden, we were greeted by a strong wind gust and heavy falling snow.

I took this picture, when we were almost home. I was so happy to reach the outskirts of our town and even happier when we arrived safely at home!

We plan to spend rest of the afternoon and evening at home, in the safety and warmth of our home. Everyone, who is affected by this weekend’s Winter storms and Arctic weather (we are expecting a HIGH temperature of -7 degrees tomorrow!), please be careful in your travels and dress warmly!

Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here are a couple creations that I put together for Valentine’s Day, using Photobacks digital templates.

Heart Collage

This heart collage contains photographs of my family: my husband, Bob; my stepdaughter, her husband and their twin daughters; and my brother and his family. Happy Valentine’s Day to you all! I love you very much.

Be My Valentine

This dog has special meaning for me. Our exchange student from Denmark gave it to me on Valentine’s Day 2004, two days after Dad had passed away. The dog reminds me of all the love I felt from everyone during that difficult time.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Our Valentine’s Day

In case anyone is wondering how Bob and I spent our Valentine’s Day, here’s a blog post whose sole purpose is to divulge that information. For those of you who aren’t wondering how we spent Valentine’s Day, I’ll tell you anyway 🙂

Bob and I

I took this picture on Saturday, with the express purpose of inserting it into an electronic Valentine’s Day greeting card for for my sweetie. Bob sent me a Valentine’s Day greeting card electronically too. What can I say? We both enjoy spending time on our computers. It’s all good, though. We both have laptop computers. We surfed the Internet together, sitting in the living room, for part of our Valentine’s Day.

My stepdaughter and her boyfriend stopped by briefly during the afternoon. They asked me to take their picture for one or more of the social networking sites to which they belong. Hey, what do you know? I now have a couple Valentine’s Day pictures of Mike and Stacey.

Stacey and Mike

Later in the day Bob and I met 15 friends (7 couples and a single man) for dinner at Variety Buffet, a local Chinese restaurant. It was delightful to share Valentine’s Day dinner with so many of our friends. The conversation was lively and entertaining, and we enjoyed our meals. I believe other restaurant patrons were entertained, too, as we read our fortunes from the little white slips of paper contained inside our fortune cookies. When you read your fortunes, do you add the phrase “in bed” at the end of your fortune? We do; it adds to the fun.

After dinner Bob and I went to Walmart, where we dropped off the movie “Zombieland“ and picked up two DVD rentals at the Redbox. We had watched the movie “Zombieland” on Saturday evening. We watched the movie “The Stepfather“ last night. We will watch “Surrogates“ later today. I wasn’t too sure of Zombieland, when it first started playing. I shut my eyes (but couldn’t stop hearing) the cannibalistic behavior that is at the start of the movie. That behavior continues throughout the movie; however, it wasn’t nearly as awful as it was at the beginning of the movie. I would agree with an imdb.com movie reviewer that Zombieland is a horror comedy. The Stepfather, is of the thriller genre, and it held our interest appropriately throughout the movie. Surrogates is a sci-fi thriller, starring Bruce Willis. I don’t believe I have ever been disappointed by a movie in which Bruce Willis stars, so I expect to enjoy Surrogates as well.

Over all a very nice Valentine’s Day indeed. In fact our entire Valentine’s Day weekend was wonderful. Thank you, sweetheart, for spending the weekend with me, in addition to spending our day together on Valentine’s Day. I love you, Bob.