Four years ago on February 13, Lee proposed.  Part of that amazing night four years ago was dinner at Oliveto, an incredible Italian restaurant in the Rockridge area of Oakland.  It's not a place we can visit often, but this year, on February 13 we returned for another mouth-watering meal.  We had a wonderful night (and for those of you who love ice cream as much as we do, we learned that Jeni's ice cream is sold at the shop beneath the restaurant! Brought in all the way from Columbus, Ohio!  We won't be forgetting that!).  I love that February 13 has become "our" Valentine's Day and definitely means more to us that February 14th.   That said, Valentine's Day is still one of the only times of year that I whip up my tasty sugar cookies and try to surprise Lee.  I generally make him one BIG one, this year I mixed it up a little bit. It's harder to surprise him living under one roof, but I still try.

And as a side note, I LOVE our kitchen island.  It is big, huge and fabulous.  I was rolling out sugar cookie dough, had three + cookie sheets in the works, cookies were coming out of our ovens and cooling on racks on the island and there STILL was room to spare.  It's pretty ding dong fantastic!