Rod is not always a romantic. He's the first to admit it and I'm quick to agree. That's why I'm glad I kept these love notes. From high school. Way back when. To remind me he has it in him even when he pretends he doesn't. Mostly song lyrics and Pink Floyd inspiration but sweet just the same. He wishes he kept mine so these effusive love letters from high school weren't so one sided.
Always folded in a triangle, usually included some sweet nickname, on yellow lined paper, always ended with love ya! "Hopefully you're a good cook, but I guess I'll never know!" And "When are you going to get your license? Just think we can go out every weekend and we won't have to watch movies!" ha ha! How funny to think that these were from exact same age that our oldest Kelsey is right now! How cute are these? So glad I kept em! I even have his high school swatch watch, an article from the paper from when he went to Lake Placid for cross country skiing before Junior Olympics, and a ticket envelope from a concert he went to. I guess I knew he and his notes were something I should keep around for a while! I actually thought to find them again the other day when I was at Kelsey's high school for a meeting and saw a sign for roses for sale for Valentine's day. I remembered that Rod had gotten me one for St. Patrick's day or Valentine's day and written a funny poem to include along with it...
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| Ha ha! The girls certainly got a kick out of this one! |
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| A blast from the past... |
We celebrated Valentine's Day a little early this year. This weekend Rod and I had planned to have a date night and have Kelsey babysit. We get so busy with the girls and their plans and schedules that we often forget to make time for us. My dad and Penny had plans Saturday morning to take the girls to a an art class they had given them for Christmas and invited the girls to sleep over on Friday night. So our date night turned into an entire date night and day! We had been wanting to do the classic dinner and a movie date night. (Funny because Rod couldn't wait to do anything but watch movies as a teen!) We love getting a chance to talk and connect over dinner and then go see a new movie together and be entertained. We went to Alma Nove in the Hingham Shipyard. They had a great gluten free menu but unfortunately I can't eat everything on a gluten free menu. I had to adapt and switch things around but was so happy with my swordfish, sweet potatoes with cumin (yum!) and gluten free roll with salted and peppered butter!) Rod had butternut squash ravioli and scallops and a delicious beet salad. Then to be closer to home when the movie got out we drove up to Legacy Place for a movie. We were driving home at midnight in the most beautiful sparkly snowstorm I've ever seen.
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Have I told you Lately that I love you was our wedding song. A good daily reminder! It has now become our family song. I took a frame we had and wrote the lyrics to the song all over the mat and blew up one of our favorite family pictures in one of our favorite places (Sunset Cove at Hermit Island...sunsets, camping, good friends & family..couldn't get much better than that!) Our kids used to be shy about saying I love you. A few years back we started saying it to them more often and even if they felt awkward insisting they say it back. It is now a habit that I love. There are "I love you's" said daily as we leave, say goodnight, get dropped off for activities. So glad this has become a part of our family's day to day language. When they sleep over someone else's house they often text ML (Much Love) which is our sign off passed down from my mom. It really is so important to tell our family members how much we love them on a daily basis!
We also have several Willow Tree "Promise -Hold dear the Promise of Love" which was a gift from Rod's mom and "Mother & Daughter" which I love. For our 5th Anniversary I made Rod the collection of Shaker boxes each with a picture in the lid from that year of our marriage. We had made and given one to each of our friends that were in our wedding because we got married at Fruitlands which is also a shaker museum. We have a habit of making things as gifts to celebrate our anniversaries. For our 10th Anniversary we were busy with 3 young kids but I believe we built our patio that year, for our 12th I made Rod a clock with pictures to represent the 12 years of our marriage and for our 15th we distinctly planned and built our front walk together. We were talking this weekend about what we would do for our 20th. We enjoy planning and completing projects together and these projects end up being our dates and time spent together whether it is ripping out the attic and creating two rooms for our kids to hang out in or building walls and patios and walkways together. We like planning, dreaming and doing these projects together.
This weekend it was so nice to take the time to be together and celebrate what brought us together in the first place. So much of married life with children is about the logistics. Who is taking Haley to hockey, picking up Kelsey from work, driving Lindsay to dance, can you stop for some bread and milk, what's for dinner, have you done such and such yet??? I know Valentine's day is a "Hallmark holiday" for many but since gift giving and holidays are my love language I love every opportunity to celebrate love and friendship and family! Sometimes that gift just needs to be a gift of time. I forget how much we need these date nights and date days!
Saturday for our date day we slept in, had coffee and breakfast in bed and relaxed without any activities to take the kids to. When we first started dating "again" in Boulder we loved going for hikes and starbucks for our day dates. On Saturday we took these two along with us for our hike in the snowy woods. More of a chance to talk and connect and realize how we need to plan and make time for the two of us (and these tag-a-longs) more often!
Happy February! Happy Valentine's Day! In honor of this month consider writing someone you know a love letter...they may just treasure it for life, planning a date night or date day together doing some of your favorite things, making a special matted frame with a poem or song for a picture you love, or dreaming up a project to look forward to completing together this year!
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| Haley made this for Rod & I. I love the simplicity of it & the wine corks! She's in the other room crafting away...I can't wait to see what she's making! |
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