How I Spent Valentine's Day in Philadelphia

My boyfriend, Derek, and I have a few yearly traditions when it comes to Valentine's Day. The first one, have brunch for dinner and watch Valentine's Day. We started this when we were too broke to go out for a fancy dinner but now I absolutely love it. We usually get champagne to make mimosas and then we make waffles, simple but sweet. We also watch Valentine's Day, not because it's a great movie (because let's be real lol) but because we saw it in theaters for our first ever Valentine's Day date all the way back in 2010. Secondly, we usually plan a weekend around Valentine's Day to go to NYC for an afternoon. We decided to skip that tradition this year because of COVID-19 and hung out in our own city for the day instead.

 

FLOWERS

Derek surprised me with this beautiful bouquet from Old City Flowers. Our first apartment together was in Old City so anything that has to do with that neighborhood fills me with nostalgia. Such a sweet surprise!

BRUNCH FOR, WELL, BRUNCH

This year we decided to go out to dinner for once so we actually had brunch for brunch this year! We made the typical, waffles and bacon with mimosas and settled in to watch our favorite cheesy romcom. We then took pictures with our adorable new kitten, Theo. 

WHAT I WORE

I wanted to keep it classic with black and white so I wore a collared sweater I had ordered from &Other Stories over the holidays and paired it with my favorite striped skirt. I wore this skirt often during a trip to Paris in 2017 and now every time I put it on I think about that wonderful week!  

AN AFTERNOON AT THE BARNES

AN ART MUSEUM. Words can't express how excited I was for this. It's been so long since I've been in a museum this was such a treat. This little art museum is on the Benjamin Parkway, close to the infamous Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's more intimate and has a really stunning collection full of Picasso and Renoir paintings (and much much more). 

MY FAVORITE DATE? BOOKSTORES

We had time to kill between our time slot at the Barnes and our dinner reservation so we stopped by one of my favorite used bookstores, Bookhaven. I picked up a copy of Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng which has been on my to-read list for awhile now. 

DINNER AT FARE

A lot of restaurants in our neighborhood are closed throughout the winter because of COVID-19 restrictions with indoor dining. One spot we really enjoy, Fare, has a decent outdoor set up that kept us from being too cold. I got avocado crab cakes with brussel sprouts and oven roasted potatoes along with a glass of Pinot Grigio and Derek got a flank steak with asparagus and the potatoes as well.

 

Overall, it was such a wonderful and sweet day. It's funny how busy it seemed compared to the slower days we've been experiencing in the last year!