Wii Had a Great Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a great time celebrating Valentine's Day this weekend.

It all started on Friday when I walked in the house from work and saw these on the kitchen counter:

Tyson bought me flowers! So sweet.

Right after I saw the flowers and snapped a few pictures, I headed over to my mom's house where Amber and I baked a heart-shaped cake for Saturday night's dessert.

Amber did a fantastic job decorating it!
We also colored it pink so it was pretty cute when we eventually cut into it.

We celebrated Valentine's Day on Saturday the 13th. To kick things off, we went to lunch at Papa Kelsey's with Aaron, Britney, Che', and Amber. It was fun to sit and visit with everyone for a while.
Before lunch we decided to open presents. I got Tyson a Wii and the new Super Mario Bros. game. He was pretty excited!


I had secretly been saving some of my tips every day until I had enought to buy one. But I almost didn't get one anyway, since no one in Idaho Falls has any! But luckily Game Stop in the mall was getting three consoles in right before Valentine's Day, and one of them hadn't been reserved. So I went for it and picked it up on Thursday. Phew! Cutting it close!

Tyson got me two round cake pans and a muffin pan. Perfect! I didn't have either (except for the 6-count muffin pan that I had from college ha ha) so I was really excited to get these. And of course, a delicious Hershey bar. Yum!

And Kristine got married yesterday so Tyson, Che', Amber, and I went to her reception. She looked so pretty! Amy did her hair and it turned out awesome.

I really liked her cake and the cake table/corner. It was so pretty!

After the reception, the four of us decided to head over to Olive Garden for some dinner. We were on an hour wait so we stayed in the car and talked outside ther restaurant (where this picture was taken.)

And now I'm going to tell you about our special Olive Garden experience. We'll do this in bullet form so I don't forget any details. Here it goes!

• After an hour wait we were sat at our table. It wasn't a booth, but it wasn't the worst table to sit at.
• When we sat down I started looking around and noticing the people around us. The two booths to my right had a couple in each, and both were waiting for their food. They weren't talking at all, and it seemed like they had been waiting to get their food for a long time. As a server, I tend to check things like that out when I go out to eat. But just an observation I made.
• Our server greeted us, got our drink/appetizer order, then got our drinks out. I ordered water with lemon, but didn't get the lemon. No big deal, easy to forget.
• Then the server took our order. When we got to Che' he ordered the Tour of Italy with marinara sauce on the pasta instead of alfredo. Sounded delish.
• We eventually got our appetizer (calamari - yummy!) then soon our salad and bread sticks came. Always a yummy part! (And PS, if you would like the recipe for that good dressing they put on the salad, just click here!) Che' had asked for a side of ranch but never got it. He would have asked for it from our server but he didn't come back.
• Around this time I started noticing other people around us. Those two booths occupied by couples had eventually got their food, but they were back to sitting there waiting. This time to get their check, which didn't come for a very long time. They had the same server we did.
• We sat and visited for a while, anxiously awaiting our yummy pasta. But it seemed to be taking a long time. And our server had gone missing. Our drinks were all empty and we were just sitting there with a bunch of plates. He must have just been really busy.
• Eventually we saw our server come back through his section. When he walked by our table I suddenly smelled cigarette smoke. And it smelled really fresh. For a minute I thought it was our server, then I considered the thought that it was one of the guests who had just sat down at the booth across from us and the smell came up as the server walked by. Hmmm...
• We eventually got drink refills from our server and he took our empty dishes. After more waiting for our food, the manager came up to us and explained that there was a "mis-hap" with our food and it would be out in about 5/10 minutes. She was super nice and apologized, then left us to wait for a little while longer.
• Amber, Che', and I have all been servers so naturally we started discussing the situation. We brought up our own experiences of working in a restaurant and how the "mis-hap" seemed like another of way saying that our server forgot to ring in the food. We figured that if all our food came out hot then that was probably what happened.
• Then Che' asked us if we smelled the cigarette smoke when our server walked by. And immediately all four of us answered emphathatically with, "Yes!" and continued to discuss how our server pretty much went out for a smoke break. We've had enough smoker friends in our days to know the smell of a person right after they smoke a cigarette, which was exactly what we could smell at the time.
• We ended up waiting an hour before our food got to the table. And it was all hot. But Che's was wrong, so he had to ask for a different sauce. The server blamed the cooks, of course.
• We all had two bites when the guys took their credit cards out and set them on the table. Our server eventually came back and boxed our food up. Then the manager came by and let us know that she was sorry for all the trouble and she was going to give us free dessert. We already had dessert waiting for us at home, so she ended up taking an entree off each of our checks.
• Needless to say, our server didn't get a 20% tip from us. The whole experience was a little frustrating, but the boys held it together and kept their cool nicely! And we still enjoyed the company we were with.

After dinner we went back to Amber and Che's for cake and icecream. It was delicious!

Tyson and I went to his parents' house for lunch today and it was fun. All of his siblings who live in the area were there. The tables were set up with Valentine's Day decorations and chocolates. And there were name cards at each of the plates. So cute!

Hope you enjoyed your Valentine's Day! We sure did!