Valentine's Meets OBX

For Valentine's Day this year, my husband (and family!) gave me the greatest gift ever: time away with some girlfriends. It was perfect... and now I'm back with them feeling more refreshed and invigorated than ever.

My parents came over for the weekend and joined M in watching Morenna so that I could get away. Saturday I headed south to a beach house on the shores of Outer Banks, NC. There I joined up with seven girlfriends from college for a three day stay on the beach. Though it was super cold, it was beautiful. We pretty much laid around and ate, read, gazed over the horizon and watched old movies. It was wonderful to be without responsibility for a couple of days.

Me with one of my college roommates
and the host of our weekend.

Heaven shines down.

The gang, all together again.

Monday I made the trek back home and was so excited to be reunited with my family... especially my little girl. She did really well considering I was away for two nights. The smile on her face when I walked in was so valuable to me. I love being a Mom.

As a side note, you may be wondering, as some others have, why I would choose to celebrate Valentine's Day apart from my Valentine (now that I have one!). My answer is just this: my husband and I try to make every day Valentine's Day, in that each day we purposely make time to spend quietly with each other, reminding each other just how much we value and cherish the other. So while the card-manufacturer holiday is great for an excuse to go out to eat, sniff brilliant flowers or splurge on an extra 300 calories of chocolate (something else I do just about every day anyway :-) ), M and I don't see it as any more special of a day than today. And that's why my hubby was ok with me being away. :-)