Valentine's Weekend

I thoroughly enjoyed our Valentine's weekend this year! It was mostly low-key, especially when compared to last year, but I loved every minute of it! I kicked things off by making a ginormous cupcake for B to take in to
the office. Summer gave me the cupcake mold for my birthday and I was excited to finally have an occasion to use it! Apparently it was quite the hit at the office, and B's friend Colin documented the official cupcake cutting by video. Here is a picture of the cupcake before it was sent to the office.

Ginormous Cupcake

On Saturday, B and I went out to dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant in the Ravenna neighborhood of Seattle. The place is called Salvatore Ristorante Italiano and B picked it based on it's outstanding reviews and because I've been a little obsessed with the brothers Salvatore on CW's The Vampire Diaries. :) They don't take reservations, but we only waited about 10 min for our table. Our waiter Steven reminded us both of Ricky Gervais, and he did an outstanding job despite being slammed just as we sat down. The food was absolutely divine - I had the Involtino Pollo which was chicken stuffed with rosemary, raisins, garlic, a few other ingredients in a creamy white wine sauce served over pasta. B had beef medallions with Portabello mushrooms and Gorgonzola also in a creamy white wine sauce with pasta. We were both savoring each bite while having some great conversation. Dessert was a supremely easy choice - Amarena cherries over vanilla ice cream drizzled with chocolate. I love love love those cherries. I had them for the first time last Valentine's day. I sense a tradition here... :)

Valentine's morning B surprised me with a heart-shaped silicone baking tray that has six molds and two heart-shaped metal molds...ideal for making chocolate chip pancakes which B promptly got started on. :) 

Valentine's Surprise!

 

 Caiden and his heart-shaped pancake

 

 Awwww!

  

We spent the rest of the day going through and knocking off items from our "get the house ready to put on the market" checklist. We made quite the sizable dent in the list and might be ready to have it listed by the weekend! Fingers crossed!! That evening we ate in and enjoyed the Silky Chocolate Nutella Mousse I made for dessert. Finally, Monday we had a bonus day as B had the day off from work. He spent some time at the gym and then took Caiden to the park while I spent several hours tackling the organization of our bathroom.

Like I said, it was quite the enjoyable weekend! We did some fun stuff and got a lot of work done around the house. Looking forward to enjoying a relaxing evening tonight!