Valentines Day 2011

I had a great Valentines Day this year. I cant believe that this is Joe and I's THIRD Valentines Day together. You may remember back to the first Valentines Day back in 2009. It was the first Valentines day I had spent with a boy in a long long time. I was so shocked that Joe actually had ordered flowers and had them delivered to my house and planned a nice meal for me. This was UNHEARD OF in the relationship I had been in previously. I came to find out that although I was impressed by his effort, he hated the restaurant he chose. He still talks about how that restaurant was no where near good enough for a V-day dinner... and how he was so embarrassed about it (I think that's cute). And so, every year since, he tries to out-do the infamous restaurant that he so despised (*but I thought was more then adequate*). This year, we went to Smith and Wollensky's on the Saturday prior to Valentines day. Before dinner, he gave me a beautiful card and Godiva chocolates... and I did the same. (man we are original) Anyways, the restaurant was so good. For an appetizer we had crab cakes which were outstanding. While looking for a dinner choice on the menu, I noticed that they had a raw oyster bar. Joe and I had been talking a few weeks prior that he had never had an oyster because he never had the guts to try one. So, we ordered two raw oysters, one for each of us. He ended up really liking them, and now has plans to go to an oyster bar in the near future. For dinner, we ordered a porterhouse steak and truffle oil mac and cheese (which was my absolute favorite). Next time, I'm going there for lunch getting a glass of wine and a side of mac and cheese. We also had some of there private label wine, which they make on site. All and all the meal was very good.. although I don't know that he will be able to continue on this upward trend of outdoing the previous year!! After dinner we stopped at Jolly's, which is a dueling piano bar in center city. I really enjoyed it, they played some fun music, although I do think it's more of a GNO kind of place, I don't think Joe was feeling it too much.

The next day, Manayunk was having "Manayunk on Ice", where they invited master ice sculpture carvers to come do demonstrations. I was kinda in a bummy mood because my roommate and her boyfriend were going to took at engagement rings and for some reason all my insecurities about being alone and never getting married started to come out. Not to mention I was bummed he was heading back to OH for work for the 2nd two week stint in a row. To try and cheer me up Joe took me down to look at the ice sculptures. We walked around a little bit and had a nice day.

On Monday, I got home from work and got an unexpected bouquet of roses from Joe with a note explaining how sorry he was that he cant be around for me more often, and how much he really does care about me. In retrospect, I way over reacted to other people getting engaged. I have a great boyfriend who tries most days to make me so happy. We do so many fun things together that a lot of couples never get a chance to do and if this is the only engagement ring that I see for awhile, I am ok with that...