Love Abounds- Valentine's Celebrations

This photo was taken only a few hours ago. Steve and I went to China Star for a romantic yet budget-friendly dinner of delicious king crab legs (me) and General Tao's chicken (Steve)!My mom had volunteered to take the girls out to dinner when she got home from work so that Stephen and I could go on a date. Mom ended up taking the girls to McDonald's where Lily ordered a hamburger, Amara ordered a cheeseburger kids meal, and Grandma ordered a "kidney sandwich." She was playing a joke on the person taking the order. They laughed I think. Then she really ordered their Pico guacamole burger and a fish fillet sandwich. When she went to the window to pick up the food, she asked if she could have a rat with that! Boy, isn't she funny!
When everyone got home, we watched The Studio C Valentines special. We're all pretty tired from a full day of fun. 
This morning, I took the girls to the library for their Valentine's crafts and cookies.  We then went to a homeschooler's Valentine's party and played games and had fun exchanging Valentines. 










The girls got so much candy it's like Halloween all over again!


And yes, we did do some school today. We did a history lesson this morning learning about some of the Explorers like Amerigo Vespucci, Ponce de Leon, and Ferdinand Magellan. We also played the Explorers card game. We did reading and the girls worked on their entrepreneurship projects on the computer while I went with my companion to do some visiting teaching drop offs of Valentine's gifts to our sisters.
And yes, today was a sugar day. Makes me glad that I did Zumba this morning with the girls because my meal tonight came with a coconut cream pie!
The Valentining didn't begin today though. This past weekend, we had a ward adult's Valentine's dinner which the Relief Society presidency was in charge of (that's me) and my mom was in charge of decorating. Needless to say, I had a big hand and played a big part in getting this event together. It turned out lovely.

 We planned for a hundred but only 60 or so showed up, so there was a lot of food leftover for people to take home. I'm not complaining about that because I happen to love that food. We had Cafe Rio type salads or burritos depending on what you wanted to make with the sweet pork and all the fixin's.  We also had a decadent dessert bar which I made tiger butter fudge for.
My mom put a lot of energy and effort for that day and didn't stop to even drink water very much. The place was decorated like a wedding and it was beautiful! 












The elders were in charge of our entertainment for the night and they had us play a version of The Newlywed Game. We had a lot of fun with our Ward Family. I love activities like this when we can get together and get to know one another.