Family V-Day

Today we celebrated an early Valentine's Day. First we exchanged a few small gifts. Ben and Ava had gotten small things of chocolate for Jocelyn and I, and the girls gave Ben a gift we've been working on the last few days: he got a 3-frame set with the girls' pictures in it so he has a frame for his desk at work. (I have to be honest, I came up with this idea about a week ago, and I am quite pleased with the way it turned out.)

Then we went out to dinner. Ben's and my Valentine's tradition began the first Valentine's Day we shared while dating. We lived in a college town, which meant thousands of people all trying to cram into the very few nice restaurants each holiday. Since we both felt the point was who we were spending the day with and not where we were, we ate at Sonic Drive-In. Since then every year we have had our Valentine's dinner at Sonic, or at a similar fast food joint. We continue that now with our girls in hopes of passing on to them the value of cherishing the people and spirit of Valentine's Day rather than getting caught up in the materialistic aspect. This year we actually upgraded slightly and went to Red Robin. It was a typical dinner out - the girls guzzled their drinks in seconds and then could only eat about one quarter of their food; Molly entertained us all by eating a lemon and making awesome faces after each bite; Ben and I got a few uninterrupted sentences in to each other before having to tell a child to sit still or correctly. We have come a long way since that first Valentine's dinner 10 years ago, and I couldn't imagine it any other way.