the day of love

guys...i had a pretty big week last week. because it was not only valentine's week, but my birthday week! yes...we i celebrate birthday weeks. my husband doesn't believe in them...but he usually obliges. :) 

we had a long weekend over valentines day. norman's classes were cancelled thursday and friday because of a career fair in utah that his teachers were attending and then monday was president's day! norman had a big plan for the 14th to include my birthday and valentine's day celebrations. (usually i don't let him do what we call "two-fers", or "two for one"s because i like to keep my birthday and v-day as separate celebrations...but this year i made an exception because we are so busy!). his plan was we would go to pocatello on saturday, leave grant with the grandparents and go skiing!!! that sounded like so much fun to me. i tried the whole snowboarding thing growing up...hated it. hate hate hate. i'm awful and never got better. so i told norman a while back that i would like to learn to ski, see if i'm any better at that! so he planned a day for us! however, this awful weather (well....awful if you want to go skiing) dried up all our snow! so we didn't get to go....

on to plan B...

which he whipped up over night. and i absolutely LOVED every minute.

we left G with the grandparents and began our date. he planned a little "walk/drive" down memory lane. we went to a handful of different spots in pocatello that had some sort of special meaning to us. including our old apartments, where we met up the night he got home from his mission, and where he proposed! (we hadn't been back to where he proposed since the real deal...so that was kinda fun). i love to reminisce so this was a great date! 

now...on to the good part. the gift....

i had told norman not to get me anything because i had ordered this swimming suit from piper and scoot (soooooo cute) that was pretty pricey and i just wanted that for my birthday and valentine's day. so i wasn't expecting anything. but...we pulled up to our last destination on our little adventure and sit down to start talking and he pulls out my phone to show me "my gift". i figured he had ordered something that hadn't come yet and wanted to show me what it was...even though i told him not to.

guys...it was so much better. but there's a back story...

so around our first or second year of marriage i somehow found out that norman had been writing a song for me. i was sooooo excited to hear it!! well...years went by and busy schedule's got in the way and the song was never finished. norm is a bit of a perfectionist and didn't want me to hear it until it was ready. so i teased him at every holiday that the only thing i wanted was to hear that dang song!!! and it was always a no go....

well, a couple semesters ago up at byui, norman had to do a little project for one of his general classes. he decided that he was going to use my song lyrics for his project since he had them already done. so he went to a group of strangers essentially....and read them MY SONG!!!! can you believe that??? and he still wouldn't let me hear it. OR read it.

so i relentlessly teased again every holiday, "so do i get to hear my song yet since a group of random byui kids now know it and are now wandering around the world with MY lyrics?"

no. nothing.

well....back to present day....we are sitting on a little bench in a park and he gets my phone out and starts to explain that even though he didn't have all the chords for the song done, he felt like he wanted to share with my the lyrics anyway. guys.....i was sooooo excited i could cry. in fact, i kind of did. so he read me the lyrics and they were probably the sweetest darn thing i have ever heard. they could win a grammy or a tony or an oscar or some big prestigious award. and i cried through the whole thing. it was the best present i could have ever gotten. 

i know you couples with kids know that sometimes it's hard to find time to reconnect after children come along. yeah, maybe we find time to go out to dinner together, or watch a movie kid free...but sometimes it still leaves you longing for the connection you had with just the two of you.... well, after this date...i could feel it. we had reconnected and it was the best feeling in the world! the three little crowns blog just did a post on this and i thought it was so real and brilliant. go read it.

anyway! after our date, we went home and freshened up for dinner with my sister and her boyfriend! the food was good, service was slow...but all was well hanging with some people i love most! 

i hope all of you had a fabulous love day! whether it was celebrating a significant other, a parent, a child, a friend, or yourself! i hope you found something to love and celebrated it!