Happy Valentine's Day!

Nathan and I got to go on an early Valentine's date on Tuesday. Nathan's parents were kind enough to watch Blake while we went to a "Marriage Banquet" put on by the USU Extension. We had a delicious dinner of a variety of salads, prime rib, shrimp, and rolls with a delicious dessert. While we were enjoying dessert, we also got to enjoy a great speaker. He spoke about our "love buckets" and how being able to fill your own love bucket is imperative to your relationship with your spouse. I won't bore you with all of our notes, but he did give us a good handout about 8 needs that must be met for a person to feel happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. Here is his list:

1. Feel safe and secure
2. Develop a positive picture of ourselves
3. Develop close, real-love relationships
4. Feel like we belong
5. Receive the respect of others and ourselves
6. Feel worthwhile (i.e. important and valued) by developing healthy self-esteem
7. Feel competent (that we are good or successful at some things)
8. Experience growth

On Thursday, Nathan got me some beautiful flowers that smell wonderful!!! We will plant the bulbs in our garden when we get that set up and hopefully I will get to enjoy them for years to come :)

Tonight we had our family Valentine's date at home. Nathan made a delicious shrimp curry and Blake devoured the shrimp!

For dessert, we had lava cake with cherry vanilla ice cream....mmmm!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Recipe for Shrimp Curry:

Ingredients

• 1 cup chopped onions
• 4 tsp. olive oil, divided
• 1 green or red bell pepper, cut into strips
  
• 2-3 cups potatoes, diced
  
• 1/2 - 1 lb. uncooked, peeled shrimp
• 1 Tbs. red curry paste
• 2 Tbs. water
• 1 cup light coconut milk
• 1 tsp. curry powder
• 3 cups cooked rice

Directions

1. In a large skillet, sauté the onions on medium in 2 tsp.oil. Meanwhile, cook potatoes in microwave until soft. Add pepper strips and remaining oil (if needed) to onions, sauté about 3 minutes. Add the shrimp; cook for another 2 to 3 minutes, until they are opaque.

2. Add curry paste, water, light coconut milk, and curry powder to the shrimp mixture. Bring to a boil and cook, uncovered, 2 to 3 minutes to thicken slightly. Serve over rice.

Just a note: 1 cup of regular coconut milk has 552 calories, 1 cup of light coconut milk only has 180 calories. And just in case you were wondering, we didn't notice anything lacking in flavor by using the light coconut milk :)