Valentine Shmalentine's Day

Here's how our Valentine Shmalentine's Day went down:

• We hired our new favorite babysitter two weeks in advance. We knew it would be a hot business night so we wanted to snatch her up. She is adorable and the most experienced and mature twelve year old I have ever met. In my opinion, the twelve year olds are the best because they are actually eager to babysit and not too engaged in their social lives yet. They are fresh out of babysitting/first aid courses, and this particular girl leaves us detailed reports of books read, food eaten, and bedtime, and leaves us her business card. Is that marketing or what? Troy is particularly impressed with her business model and raves about her geniousness to our friends.

• We had dinner at a restaurant in the Hilton. It actually wasn't busy at all. I made a reservation but really didn't need to. It was the way to go on the busiest date night of the year.

• We saw Rock on Demand, a laser light show at the planetarium downtown. The audience chose the songs and then sat back and enjoyed the dizzy show. I really wanted to do something different than seeing a movie, so the laser show was perfect. It was only an hour but I don't think we could have lasted much longer. Those lasers started tripping out our eyes and stomachs after awhile.

• We came home, blew up the air mattress, ate chocolate strawberries, and watched "P.S., I Love You." Well, Troy did. I fell asleep.

• We decided not to do gifts this time around because we went out instead. We did exchange sweet sappy cards though. To our surprise, we had both written the same thing on our envelopes, without knowing what the other had written or if the other had even gotten a card at all. It was just extra proof that we are growing more and more alike and that we were made to be Valentines.