Our Snowy Valentine's Day

We had a lovely Valentine's Day. We did absolutely nothing. :P We had discussed maybe going to Brussels to an international bookstore, because G had noticed I am already down to only 2 books (make that 1 and a half after the long bath I took this morning). But when we got up today it was snowing, and as the morning progressed it only fell heavier and heavier. We knew the trains would be a mess of delays, plus we'd get wet walking around Brussels. So we decided to stay in.

I made pancakes for breakfast and we used some of the sacred maple syrup (you can't get it here, so we try to be very sparing with it). It was an adventure trying to make pancakes from scratch using only my one very large metric measuring cup - the smallest measurement on it is like 100 grams, and I needed to measure like 10 grams of baking soda... So there was lots of guesstimation. But they were edible (delicious if you ask G, but he's a pancake newb so you can't trust his opinion!).

After breakfast, I took a bath and G went to the bakery to get some rolls for us to have with the stew I made for lunch. I stayed in the bath so long he made it home from the bakery before I was out. :D We had beef stew for lunch - I made it last night. Its funny that we chose beef stew as our special occasion food, but the beef is so expensive that it really is something we can only have now and then. That was one thing I had cooked for him while he was in Maine that he was eager to eat again, so I made some. It was good, different than usual since so many of the ingredients were a little different, but still very tasty. We both ate so much stew and crusty rolls that we were stuffed, so after lunch we lolled around on the couch.

We just laid around talking for hours this afternoon, and then we dozed off waiting for the ice cream truck to arrive. We were starting to doubt she was coming, thinking she was perhaps scared off by the snow, but she eventually arrived and we both got ooey gooey sundaes. I was able to do about half my order in Dutch, but he had to help me with the nuts and whipped cream. :D After ice cream, it was hours more of lolling on the couch giggling and talking and daydreaming about the baby and reflecting on our year.

It was one year ago, almost to the day, that we met face to face for the first time! Its astonishing to both of us how much has happened in this past year. We went from shy strangers taking a carriage ride around Boston Common to married parents-to-be living in Belgium in 12 short months. We both agreed that while we have no regrets, we never meant for things to happen this fast. We both are kind of shocked at how completely our lives have changed. We've decided that it was meant to be, and we're happy - but I think we are both hoping that life slows down a bit in the year to come!