Valentines Day 2014

I was a little worried about what Valentines Day would be like without Brandon.  It's my favorite holiday so we usually go all out for it.  We managed to have a really good celebration this year - just in different ways than usual.

The day started out with all of us spending some Skype-aided time together.  It was 8:30 am here and 11:30 pm there, so it was still Valentines Day for all of us.  Brandon told me where to find a box that he'd left our Valentine's Day presents in.

The kids opened the box and found candy inside.  They were all really excited.

Brandon had also wrapped up a picture for each child.The pictures were from the photoshoot we did with Lindsey a few weeks before Brandon left.  Charlotte and Lydia showed their pictures to Brandon and said, "that's me and that's you!"

Derrick was more interested in his candy.

It was a fun way to spend the holiday together, I imagine we'll do something similar every holiday.  (Though I'll be the one putting together the "from Daddy box" next time.)

Brandon even made Valentines for each of us so we put them up where we could enjoy them all day.

After our little family party it was time to get everything ready for the big event of the day - another party!

Last week I realized that I needed things to look forward to.  I needed reasons to keep my house clean.  I needed to be more social.  So I decided to have a Valentines Day Luncheon for all the women that I knew whose husbands would be away on Valentines Day.  It was the perfect thing to keep my mind off the the fact that Brandon would be gone.  I was also motivated to clean my house and temporarily rearrange the furniture.

There happened to be a lot more lonely wives than usual because many of the troops here at Fort Hood are currently doing a month long rotation at the National Training Center in California.  That means that a lot of wives were on their own for Valentine's Day.  I was excited to give them something to do.  I had a lot of fun coming up with special things we could do together.

I invited about 15 women that I know from my neighborhood and my church ward.  Eight of them said they could come.  Of those, four ended up with unexpected things coming up at the last minute.  So I only had four women come.  I told myself, "even if it's just me and one other person it is still worth it to have a party." And it was!

There also were 12 kids running around the house, so we still had plenty of people.

We did kind of a pot luck style luncheon.  Everyone said what kind of food they would bring (main dish, side dish, dessert, etc.), but didn't get specific.  We ended up with rolls, sushi rolls, cupcakes, pasta salad, and macaroni and cheese.  The Mac-n-cheese was inspired considering how many kids we had attending.

My dear neighbor, Ange, had a family emergency so she couldn't come, but that didn't stop her from bringing over the drink stand and drink ingredients that she'd promised to bring.  She wrote out excellent instructions so I was able to make the drinks.  Charlotte and Lydia took it upon themselves to fill up cups with punch for everyone.

They did a very thorough job.

I wanted us to have a chance to think about our husbands during the party so I wrote out some questions that we could all answer.  They were questions like: What is the most romantic thing your husband has done for you?  How did you get engaged? What was your favorite thing about your wedding?  We each picked a paper with a question and answered it.  We did about 3 round of that "game."  I loved hearing everyone's stories.  

I think everyone enjoyed getting to know each other.  One reason I wanted to do a get-together like this was because of a blog post I read by Jennifer Fulwiler.  She wrote: 

"Ten years ago, I understood intuitively that it’s always good to get people together, even if you can’t predict exactly what the benefits will be. Though I couldn’t have articulated it at the time, one of my unspoken life mottos was:

Hang out with people in person.
Ask them about their lives — real questions, not small talk.
Watch the magic happen."

I wanted to try it out for myself.  I think this little luncheon did create a little magic.  I feel like I'm better friends with everyone who came.  

( I highly recommend reading Jennifer's whole post entitled, "When in doubt . . . GO"

I asked everyone to bring a "pampering gift" for a gift exchange.  I also had everyone bring a bag of candy.  We put them all together into a big vase.  I thought it looked really pretty.

Towards the end of the party I put the candy into little tulle sacks.  I'd cut the tulle WAY too big, but it still looked really cute.

It was such a great party! (Have I said that enough?)  I'm so glad I was able to turn a day that could have been really negative into something that was really positive.  I still missed Brandon a little bit, but that was mainly because I know he would have had such a good time at the party too.  He was here in spirit though.