Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, yesterday, that is :)

Hope everyone had a great day! My mom sent me flowers and chocolates at work, because she's sweet like that :) Then Dan took me to The Icon, this new tapas bar on State Street. They had a five-course special for Valentine's Day, and it was delicious!

Our first course was Spanish cheeses, different types of olives, smoked salmon on a cracker, and some sort of Spanish sausage.

Our second course was a roasted red pepper filled with something (I don't know; I didn't eat it!), a garlic shrimp, more Spanish sausages, and something else I can't remember.

Our third course was a citrus salad (for me) and mushroom soup (for Dan). Then our main course arrived, and oh my gosh, it was delicious! We had steak and lobster, and the lobster was amazing. Completely drenched in butter (healthy, right?), it was the most delicious lobster I've ever had. And the steak was great, too.

Then for dessert we had chocolate truffle cake and complimentary champagne. It was an absolutely perfect Valentine's Day celebration!

Sorry I've been away so long!

*Sigh*. You know how it gets; life is so hectic! But I've wanted to update you all on our lives, so here goes!!

Rori is now FIVE. Yes, my little goddaughter, who I swear was a tiny little thing just yesterday, is now five years old. She is learning her letters and numbers, and can write almost everyone's name. I can't believe how smart she is! She had her fifth birthday party at Imperial Garden, since it was a Mulan theme (Mulan seems to be her favorite princess, at least for now, although she was also Mulan for Halloween!). She had so much fun, and Dan and I are so glad that we get to be such a part of her life!

Umm, let's see, what else. Oh! How could I forget?!? (Ok, I didn't really forget!) DAN GOT A JOB! Yes, I am so proud of my husband; he got a job already! He interviewed last Monday, the 4th, and they wanted him to come back for a second interview on the 8th (Friday). So he did, and they offered him the job on the spot! We are so excited! And best of all, it's not something that he just figures he will do until he finds something better. No, he came home from the first interview very excited, saying, "This would be my ideal job!" So needless to say, we're thrilled! (And a huge financial worry has been lifted!)

Other than that, we've just been dealing with life. Our heater went out on Sunday, when it was -4 degrees! I was home alone, watching Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn (great classic, by the way), and all of a sudden I hear this loud CRASH right above our stairway, like something fell. So Maxine and I race upstairs (she always has to investigate, LOL), but there was nothing out of place. I then hear this terrible grinding sound, like "Ch-chink, ch-chink," etc., and it was incredibly noisy. If someone had been in the house with me, we would have had to shout to hear each other. That went on for 2 or 3 minutes, and then stopped with another loud crash.

So I finish watching my movie, and when it was done, I noticed it was chilly in our place. I went over to look at the thermostat, and even though we had it set on 66, it was only 61. I thought that was strange, but didn't really give it anymore thought. So when Dan comes home, I explain to him about the noise, but he couldn't figure it out either. That is, until he went into our garage, and noticed that our water heater (which is tied to our heat somehow; don't ask me, I'm not the engineer!) had EXPLODED with such force that it blew the door of the water heater closet wide open. Hmm, that explains why it was so cold in there!

So we called maintenance, and he came over with space heaters, since they wouldn't be able to fix it until morning! By now, it was 50 degrees in our house, and the -4 degrees outside and the ferocious wind chill weren't helping matters! When we woke up on Monday morning, it was 39 degrees in our living room! (We had had both space heaters upstairs; one in our room, and one in our guest room, since that's where we keep our parakeets). Luckily, it's all fixed now. I tell ya, though, as much as I want to own a home, it's situations like this that make me glad we rent. I can just call up maintenance and they fix it, at no cost to us. (Of course, I still have house envy, but eh, that's life, right? :))

Hope everyone else is doing ok!