Belated Happy Valentine's Day and President's Day!

Trav & I have been getting up early on Saturday mornings to serve at MTC since last month, and this past Valentine's Day (Sat) was no different. While I was chewing my oatmeal groggily, Trav presented me my first valentine's gift (from him) ever-a "cow" bank and heart-shaped shortbread cookies! I knew right away where the cow bank came from since it was spotted in a nearby dollar store during a spontaneous window-shopping trip. The shortbread cookies were catered to my taste-NOT fond of chewy cookies! My sweetie Trav! He told me a single rose's price was raised to about 15 bucks (around BYU campus) so that he couldn't get me one. And he also told me that he thought I would choose food over roses if I could only choose one. (Yeah, you know me well, Trav) Well, you can see we've been struggling to meet the ends and roses are too luxury for us. Since dear bishop did encouraged us to serve in the temple to celebrate this special holiday, we went, in a very snowy, windy afternoon, and luckily the sky did clear up after the temple trip. We decided to rush to grocery stores and finished shopping for next week. Everything seemed pretty ordinary by far yet tinted with a slight bubbling anticipation of the Valentine's Day dinner, which was supposed to be a surprise for me. 

Finally, the moment had come. We sort of dressed up and sort of pretended to be in a premarital dating scene (which implies more excitement, I think). Our reservation was at 8 so we went to the restaurant, the Ottavio's, a bit earlier...

Then we saw its reception area packed with people.

At first, we were not concerned. We had a reservation, wasn't it? A reservation was supposed to protect us from such an embarrassing, seem-to-be-endless waiting in an over-crowded front of a restaurant. Different scents of perfume and cologne were entwined, mixing with some sort of anxiety. I tried to strike a conversation with a mid-aged woman and she revealed that she ALSO had a 8-o'clock reservation.

Bummer. I thought.

Yes. The two-third of this crowd had reservation around the same time. Yet we were not moving at all. The freezing air sneaked in through the often on-and-of front door. I felt myself as if a prisoner was enticed with the smell of food yet only could stay in a cold chamber. 

Time seemed to pass slowly. I was anxious, angry, then silent. The lady at the front desk called different parties in and some of them were even walk-ins or had later reservations than us. I started to ponder on justice. 

Finally, we got in around 8:40. 

Well, unfortunately, that's the part impressed me the most during this romantic day. The food was good yet wasn't worth 40 min. wait and 49 bucks. So please don't go to this restaurant on Valentine's Day unless they decide to not over-book the Valentine's Day reservations...(Their lunch menu looks much more affordable; about 8 to 10 bucks for a main dish. 

I need to say that compared to the Valentine's Day, we had a more relaxing and fun experience at Dad & Mom's place. Chatting with folks during Sunday evening, sleeping-over, munching leftover Valentine's Day chocolate and watched old classic Star Wars with a slice of rich, fattening cherry pie garnished with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. Thank you Dad & Mom! I love you guys and it's always a pleasure to invade your big, warm house!!