Valentine's Weekend

A few years ago, Craig and I began celebrating Valentine's Day on February 13. It started one year when Craig was going to be out of town for the actual day and we celebrated the day before he left. We found out that the crowds are a tad smaller and getting a sitter was a little bit easier, so our tradition began.

Friday night, we got to enjoy a wonderful dinner out, thanks to a gift certificate to Cheesecake Factory we had received a while back. It was a great chance to spend some time with just the two of us. We also exchanged gifts, which was some new workout gear for both of us. God has blessed me with a wonderful husband, a precious daddy to our children and an amazing friend. I love the way he provides for our family and takes care of me!! I have a wonderful valentine all year long.

After our date, we got to join a party (already in progress) to celebrate the birthday of our friend, Frances. It was a blast. We just sat around, talked, laughed and had a great time hanging out. Have you ever been in a group of people and find yourself looking around the circle, from person to person and jumping from one conversation to another? That was the picture of the evening. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love any excuse for a gathering of friends!

Saturday, we all headed up to church, very early, to send Craig off on the youth ministry ski trip. I'm also a notary for our youth, so I had to be up there to notarize a bunch of the medical release forms before they drove off. He had a great time skiing - he even mentioned that it was less crowded than he expected and there were even some snowfall!!

That morning, after the kids and I headed up to Lifetime. Kalyn and Trinity hadn't been with us in a while, so they were excited to go up there. My friend Jennifer had convinced me to join her in a yoga class. Okay, to say that I am not flexible is a HUGE understatement. And it was further shown me during this class. I would watch the instructor, look at those around me and their oh-so-flexible-selves, then turn to Jenn and we would just laugh. It was quite a treat to try the down dogs, the swan dives and a lot of other moves that just hurt. Maybe I'll try another class again, but I'm not sure.

That afternoon, Trinity began acting a little off. She took a long nap that afternoon and when she woke up, she was coughing quite a bit. Her appetite was less than normal, so I simply gave her some cough medicine to help her get to sleep. Well, at about 1 AM, she woke up coughing and crying. The poor girl was burning up and just couldn't get back to sleep. Not wanting her to wake up Kalyn, I brought her into our room for another round of medicine and to sleep in our bed. It was quite a long night. She kept having very vivid dreams and talking though all of them, which kept waking me up.

The next morning, she awoke to a 103.8 temperature. Unfortunately, we had to go to church. I had told two other Sunday school classes that I would teach for them and I was teaching our class. Poor Trinity was quite a trooper as she got dressed and simply sat in our classroom as I taught 3/4 of the high school classes. We even managed to get her checked out by a friend while she was there. His diagnosis - the flu. Out goal now is to simply stop it before it spreads throughout the others in our house.

So, needless to say the flu stopped our further weekend plans. Unfortunately, that included a playdate that we had scheduled for Trinity's school friends on Monday. She was very sad to have to postpone it. Even as we checked her temperature on Sunday night and I commented that it was as low as it had been all day, she asked, "If it's still low tomorrow morning, can we call everyone back and tell them to come to the party?" But, it has been successfully moved to next Wednesday - a half day for Trinity. Her bus will have a few additional passengers as she brings her friends over.

Craig is now set to be home in about an hour. I'm heading to clean up the house so he can come home to a house that is a bit cleaner than when he left. Hopefully I'll be successful.