Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day looks like this at the Stone house, Ngila makes about a hundred valentines-this takes hours, even days, she mastered cutting out hearts this year so she also made about a hundred heart stencils (or pieces of scrap paper put don't let her see you putting them in the recycling), Beatrix makes two valentines with enormous amounts of encouragement and assistance (this year they go to Mataya and Daddy), she then complains about how Ngila has so many more Valentines while she goes off to play something more interesting than making Valentines. I make one Valentine, and then come up with a special menu for my honey. This usually involves searching the internet, and browsing in the Italian market. This year - a hamburger. I know it doesn't sound exciting but consider that we had been stranded inside, buried in snow for the week preceding the event. Nothing screams summer- freedom-good times like a big juicy hamburger. Also Liam and I had these fantastic burgers in the Napa Valley in the fall and neither of us can stop thinking about them.
It was a perfect day, we started by worshiping with about a hundred recently released DC natives- it was good times, people were laughing and hugging like crazy at greet your neighbor time, clearly these people had been cooped up in their houses for too long. Then we hit the Natural History Museum which the girls have decided it is their favorite.
Liam took the girls home and I headed over to Whole Foods to pick up a few things for the meal, the things that make it Valentines- bacon & chocolate. (In that order-I think most of you would agree). We opted to go all out on the burgers -bacon, cheese, mushrooms and onions carmelized in beer, the girls like theirs deconstructed and refuse to eat mushrooms so they did not experience the full effect, which was (have I mentioned?) amazing.
The snow is melting, the metro is running, and we are eating hamburgers. A very good day.