Delayed Valentine's Day & Our Funeral Trip

About two weeks prior to the day, I decorated our house to get in a bit of the spirit of love.

This is actually a terrible picture but I loved the red placemat and red bowl for the center of our dining room table. Since our table had a pile of junk on it at the time, I took it from above, missing the super cute-ness of the red bowl... doh!

Love.
On our living room bay window ledge.

Front entry door. And yes, we know the green door color is lame.
We seriously need to do some painting....

We had originally planned to go out for Valentine's Day the Saturday before the actual day. Since we got several pieces of bad news that day, along with my uncle passing away, we decided to stay home.

But that Sunday morning after we left church, we spontaneously decided to go see a movie. Since our church is right by our city's theatre {despite that we never go to that particular theatre because we don't really like it} we decided to pop in. The movie we wanted to see wouldn't start for another 2 hours but one that we were kind of interested in {Journey 2} was starting right then. {I'll write a separate review of it later.} We didn't totally enjoy the movie, but we enjoyed just being out together.

Tuesday morning when Valentine's Day came around, we were hurrying around packing and loading up for our trip downstate for my uncle's visitation later that day. A few minutes before we left we set aside some time to open our gifts/cards for each other. I gave Tim a humorous card and some chocolates that he likes.

Here's what I got from Tim:

He got me a super sweet card, a necklace with the "key to his heart" :), and a gorgeous ring that I absolutely love and can't stop wearing. Oh and not pictured, he got me a huge heart-shaped Reeses's peanut butter cup. It's not pictured because I ate it. And it was yummy!

We finally agreed a few years ago that we were buying the wrong types of cards for each other. It's sort of like how you tend to speak to someone in your own love language instead of theirs. We were giving the types of cards to each other that we would want for ourselves. So now I buy him funny cards {what he likes} and he buys me sentimental/sweet/romantic cards {what I like}. We are still working on that whole speaking in each others love language thing {his is a combo of acts of service and physical touch, mine is a combo of words of affirmation and quality time}.  

So we finally got a chance to really celebrate Valentine's Day last Saturday with a date day! Here we are just before heading out.

We'd slept in until almost 11 {which never happens but we'd had a crazy week and we were zonked!} and by 1 we were heading out to the movies. We went to see This Means War at the uber nice 30 screen AMC theatre about 20 minutes from our house. I'll give the full review of that movie soon as well. Then we headed out to our 5 pm Sat church service. We had every intention of going to Outback Steakhouse afterward, our usually annual V Day tradition. Plus we got a gift card for it from my Grandpa for Christmas. It was perfect.

Except you really need to be super hungry to go there, and we'd had too much yummy popcorn at the movie!

So we bailed and went to our favorite hometown-style restaurant, where I enjoyed some yummy pumpkin pancakes and Tim enjoyed his pot roast. I know I usually take pictures of food, but this time I didn't. We did leave with super delish homemade shakes too!

On our way home we rented Real Steel, a phenomenal movie & quite enjoyable!!

Thankful for my hubster and a special day to specifically set aside time to spend intentionally together, reflecting on our love and special years together! We have now shared 13 Valentine's Days together. Here's our very first one together in February 1999, 10 months after we started dating.

oh. my. word.

Yes, I'm one of those girls. Give me all the Valentine's Day I can get! And yes, Tim is convinced it's a Hallmark holiday just to get everyone to spend money. He met his match, haha!! I am a true romantic at heart so any chance at that and I'm a total sucker. He just loves that. ;)

As I was typing most of this up the other day, I asked Tim for help in clarifying the exact number of years we've shared in V Days, he ends it by saying, "Just figures that lucky number 13 would be spent at a funeral home!" LOL - I couldn't help but really laugh at the irony of that. Sadly though, it is true. We stood for 4 hours straight that night greeting people, weeping together, sharing memories, laughing together, and hugging more people than we can count on the actual Valentine's Day. 

But when spending it with family in the midst of a tragedy, it's not exactly your focus. 

Thankfully the actual day did end on a good note. After those four very tough, but also good hours, we went out to dinner with my mom, stepdad, 2 aunts and 2 uncles. It was very, very sweet. And we went to my favorite spaghetti house to boot!

I could for real eat spaghetti every. single. day. Mmmm.

Then we ended with a couple hours at my brother's house, playing with and laughing with our 2 nieces and nephew. I put Olivia & Cayley to bed before leaving, read them their Bible story, prayed with them, and answered some TOUGH questions they'd managed to come up with! It was quite an adventure, but it brought such sweet joy to my heart. The sad part was that they'd be at school the next day during the funeral, so we wouldn't see them, so hugging good night also turned into goodbye, and none of us wanted to let the moment end.

Enjoying the Valentine's Day cards we got them

Joshua walking with Grandpa {my dad}, sporting a cute-as-all-get-out t-shirt that says "Handsome is an understatement" - haha, I love it!!

Olivia& Grandma {my mom} playing some back and forth bouncing with Joshua who is all slicked up like Alfalfa after his bath - isn't he precious?!?!? 

 

It was quite the roller coaster ride of a day. But it puts into perspective all of the meaningful things in life, what matters most, and that how we spend the actual Valentine's Day doesn't ultimately matter. What matters is that we honor God wherever we are and that at the end of the day, we're standing in it all together.

Seeing my aunt's broken heart that night and her lonely spirit really brought home the reality.

I'm so thankful for hubster each and every day - whether we're laughing or arguing, I'm so glad I get to spend it with him!

But I'm also sensitive to my friends out there who are single, lonely, longing for a mate, and hating every year of Valentine's Days. I understand friends, I hate every year of Mother's Days that go by. I know it's not the same, but I just want you to know I'm sorry and I'm not writing this with some insensitivity to the plight of singles. You are in my heart and prayers.

Whether you have someone or not doesn't ultimately matter. How you spend each day impacting this world is what matters.