Will you be my Valentine? part 2

Have I expressed to you how much I love Valentine's Day? We've been doing fun little activities leading up to Valentine's Day and Aidan keeps asking each day if today is Valentine's Day, and finally IT IS VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Pappy & Mimi gave them balloons, which after a few days of trying to keep from floating to the top of the vaulted ceilings, we released them (I'll post more about our balloon launches later.)


Pappy & Mimi also gave them these Whitman Samplers. Reese's response... "Oooh, MY candy!"

Reese got Belle (aka Beauty & The Beast) from Daryl and I.

We gave Aidan a few cars from Cars The Movie and this 100 piece Spiderman puzzle. He literally gave it the "thumbs up" and said "check out my awesome puzzle!"

It was a great day and Daryl and I even went out on a date. We are really trying to watch our budget, so we tried to think of a place that would be inexpensive but still good. Joking, we suggested Olive Garden. It seemed like the perfect date in high school and since we didn't know each other in high school, so this little joke turned out to be our Valentine's Day dinner. As we were in the car heading to OG, we started having second thoughts, but a huge snow storm was brewing and as we were driving in the thick flakes, we finally came the conclusion that we were okay with driving the 0.93 miles to OG instead of spending the rest of the night trying to drive back home. Please remember that there is only 1 snow plow in all of St. Louis, so the roads would not be clear when we were ready to come back home.

One thing that I will never understand about Olive Garden is why the long wait to get in? It's not really that good. It's not really that cheap, it is actually quite expensive. I'm just a little person, I can't consume enough "unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks" to really get my money's worth. Everyone talks about how delicious those breadsticks are. Are we all really standing in line for 45 minutes for breadsticks? Can't someone post the recipe to that on the internet just like those $250.00 cookies from Neiman Marcus and shut this whole thing down. I don't want to put OG out of business, I would just like to get a mediocre dinner there from time to time and not have to be handed that little pager when I walk in the door.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Olive Garden, I also love McDonald's, but why the 45-60 minute wait at OG? I've been dining at OG for over 15 years. Every once in a while I just have to have it. When I was pregnant with Aidan, I used to go by myself to the OG in Time Square and eat at the bar (I didn't have to share my breadsticks or the croutons). I fell in love with the Stuffed Shells at first bite, until they took them off the menu in the late 1990's and then I switched to 4 Cheese Ravioli. I've been eating the 4 Cheese Ravioli since then, but for our Valentine's Day Dinner, I thought I should step out of my comfort zone and order something different. I ordered Manicotti. I know, I'm a risk taker.