Happy Valentine's Day

Kyle and I had a nice, drawn-out Valentine's Day/Week. I was taking a tour of the Belgian Parliament with the American Women's Club on the night of the 14th and Kyle assumed he would end up working late, so we didn't think we would have time to actually celebrate on Valentine's Day. Instead, we exchanged gifts on Saturday night. Kyle gave me a cookbook I have really been wanting, along with a beautiful wine decanter (pictured below). I gave Kyle a book that I thought would be fun for him, considering all of the travelling he has done and all the travelling we hope to do in the future.

But a book wasn't enough. In a fit of crazy newlywed love and freetime that only a 26-year-old retiree has, I decided to make Kyle a cake. Now the only problem with this idea was that they don't really sell box cake mixes, at least the Betty Crocker kind we are used to. So I decided that I would make a chocolate cake completely from scratch. In case you have never done something like this, I highly recommend making a cake from scratch once in your life. This way, every time thereafter that you use a box mix you will fall to your knees in thanksgiving that your life is that easy. So after buttering, whipping, beating, mixing, folding and creaming what seemed like every ingredient in my entire kitchen, I finished the cake. And then I had to ice it... So five hours, yes, five hours and two trips to the grocery store later, I finished my masterpiece -- a two layer chocolate cake with pink icing on the bottom and white icing on the heart.

But before we ate the cake, we had salmon, creamed spinach, and garlic cheese grits for dinner.