Behind the Three Point Line: Saint Valentine's Day

Who better to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day than the Hoff.

The Critters got to experience two Valentine's Days this year, I guess the one at their mom's morning out was unofficial, but oh well. The Critters did get some nice goody bags which Dad insisted they were much too young to eat the contents. (i.e. it had Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in it.)

On the Official Valentine's Day the Critters got to open their presents from us and Grandma Barbara. As usual they made out like bandits. Mom and Dad also did pretty well this year from each other. Mom finally got her "Happy Everything" plate from Coton Colors. (Yes, I know there is only one 't' in 'Coton' but I didn't misspell it, promise.)

Later in the day Aunt Donna came over to hang out with the Critters. I got off a little bit early and headed home to cook dinner for us. This is where the fun started. I was making a red velvet cake from scratch and the recipe called for three 9" pans, well I only have two. Rian had gone to Publix and all they had was three 8" inch pans. I thought, no problem, it will just take a little longer to cook. NOT THE CASE. After putting them in the oven I noticed that they were baking over and dripping all over the bottom of the oven. My attempts at stopping this with aluminum foil was also thwarted. You can imagine what happened next, yep FIRE. The cake batter dripped onto the heating coil, which in turn created fire. This was not a happy fire moment, this was a damn the oven is on fire freak out moment.

I was able to stomp out the burning cake batter with some tongs. I also was able to carefully dump the remaining non-fire batter from the three 8" pans into two 9" pans. Unfortunately in my rush I only greased one pan. Lets just say that that section of the cake decided to stay in the pan after cooking. So the envisioned three layer red velvet cake chocked full of awesomeness was reduced to a one layer sad sight of a red velvet cake. Hey, at least it tasted good.

The rest of dinner preparation went relatively uneventful after that fiasco. I guess the only thing that could have topped it would have been some sort of small explosion. Rian, Aunt Donna and I dined on salmon, gnocchi, and broccoli w/ hazelnuts.

All in all it was a great Valentine's Day. (especially after the fire)

The Critters did not have a special meal but Aunt Donna brought them over strawberry ice cream for dessert. They each got their own little cup of Haagen Dazs. As you can imaging they scarfed it down. I mean, who doesn't love strawberry ice cream.

Here are a few shots. (No there are not any pictures of the fire.)