Valentine's Day at Our House

(Not at all as you would likely expect.)

Today was Everette's and my 25th Wedding Anniversary.  (We don't recommend getting married on Valentine's day.  We'd marry each other over again, but we wouldn't choose Valentine's Day to do it.  But that's beside the point.)

We spent yesterday together in Victoria, window-shopping, checking out new art supply stores, having lunch, taking in Tea-tasting at Silk Road, buying our family a tea set. ( Tea is our new education.  We never liked 'tea' until last month when we actually tried the Real McCoy, and now we are tea drinkers.  So it was a treat to spend more than an hour tasting and smelling and learning about tea yesterday. Then when we returned home we sipped and sampled tea with the children on the living room floor, sitting around flickering candles. )

Today we spent our actual anniversary here at home with our children.  A quiet, lazy day of togetherness.  Sharing, playing, creating, dancing, eating, working together.  A lovely family day.  And I gave my Valentine a surprise.

I must admit, I gave myself a bit of a surprise too.

After 25 years & 14 pregnancies (includes losses which still put weight on me!)

I'm up 14 pounds and still fit in the dress!  

I think that's pretty darn Good!!

 The satin needs a good ironing job, but this was impromptu so it didn't get done, and got shoved back in a sack in storage afterwards, so what would be the point.  Besides, I'm allergic to ironing!

To say that the children enjoyed seeing mommy in her wedding dress is to make an understatement.  Over and over again the younger girls pampered me, fixing my train, dancing around me, wishing they could be my Flower Girls.  They were so delighted.

Tonight we spent the evening trying to figure out our Jive steps for dance class.  And we got Layne and Mitchell learning some steps, too.  There was laughter, and some bouncing like bunnies instead of stepping like dancers, but it was all so enjoyable.

And then there was the cuddles with the children as we watched documentaries and a Tinker-bell movie.

We ended it with lighting sparklers on the back patio, sending light into the darkness.  I hope that our Love gives some light into the darkness.

Being together, its been an absolutely enjoyable Valentine's Day, and a great celebration of our commitment to One Another.  Here's to another 25 years.

Dancing

In our religious upbringing, dancing was sinful.  So whenever there was dancing as part of our Physical Education at school, we got Religious Exemption.  Both Everette and I.  Different environments (city gal and country boy), different schools, obviously different parents but same religious perspective.

Dancing was wrong.  Along with a deck of cards.  Bowling alleys.  You get the picture.

Well, I've been wanting to learn how to dance for years now.   I even borrowed some videos from the library, once.  Some Country Line Dancing.  And Layne, Rauchelle & I had a hoot laughing alongside Everette as he tried to follow the steps to something like The Watermelon Crawl with his dress shoes sliding along the shag carpet of a house we were housesitting.  I think tears rolled down my cheeks.

Since then I've either had a growing belly sticking way out there, or a nursing baby I didn't want to drag to a dance class and worry the whole time about, or leave a nursing toddler at home with.....whom??  So we just never learned.

One night many moons ago when I had traveled to Minneapolis with my mom and sister for a cousin's wedding, one of my uncles made me get up and 'learn' to dance some waltz or something as he pushed aside some tables and chairs at the back of the empty restaurant we were having a late dinner at.  He said it was to prepare me for the dancing at the wedding reception in a couple of days.  His alcoholic breath didn't actually endear me to the experience, but I still knew that in the right situation dancing could be fun for me.

Well, the time has come, and tonight actually Everette and I took our very first dance class.  "Social Ballroom".

And it was fun.

We suck.  But we have a whole week to practice!

And did I say it was fun?!