Our Valentine's Day weekend

We decided a few weeks ago to do something special for Valentine's Day this year. I've probably shared this here before but the weekend is special to us. On February 13, 1998 during our freshman year of college a cute boy gave me a special Valentine card in the Bean (the ACU cafeteria) during lunch with our group of friends. The card said "Will you be my Valentine?" and was homemade (which just melted my heart even more!). I'm so glad I said yes! I think I waited until Sunday actually to say yes because Friday after lunch we both headed in our separate directions to our homes for the weekend.

Since February 13 was on a Friday this year we decided it would be fun to go back to our "college city" of Abilene for Valentine's Day weekend. My husband took off work and realized he was off Monday too for President's Day so it turned into a four day weekend for us.

We left Thursday night and stayed the night with my Mom. Caleb got to go to school with her in the morning. He loves this (and she does too!). We stopped and picked him up as we were leaving town. My husband handed me a Valentine and said I really needed to open it. I told him I could just wait till Saturday. He kept telling me I should open it before we leave. So I did. (It wasn't too hard to convince me!) He got me a car charger for my Ipod called Itrip auto. I'd been looking at them but had not purchased one yet. This one is not just a charger though, it can also play the music through the car radio. It was really sweet of him. We have an envelope (in our Dave Ramsey plan) for gifts but he had used his own money out of his own funds to get it. I'm glad he got me to open it early!

We got to ACU in time for chapel. Friday is singing day and it was a wonderful time. At the end the president of the university, Dr. Money, got up and spoke briefly about some recent issues with the NCAA that was announced last week. I don't understand all the rules and regulations but one thing mentioned was a local church had a Christmas party for some students. Their receiving small gifts was against the NCAA rules. Kinda crazy in my opinion. Anyway.... After chapel we walked around campus and then went to the Bean for lunch. When I was in college I won a contest hosted by the Bean for a dessert contest. I won 10 tickets for a place on campus called Reservations Only. I never used all the tickets and emailed them to ask if I could use them previously when we thought we were visiting campus. I was told that Reservations Only was closed but come visit the Bean. This time I tried to email but didn't get a response so I just took them. They did give us a discount which was fine with me! The Bean has changed so much. It was much more open and looked very modern. Caleb enjoyed eating there and all the food choices. After lunch we visited with one of my husband's professors. We also went to the Campus Store. Caleb got a hat just like Daddy's. He was SO excited. He kept saying thank you for this hat, I've always wanted a hat like this.
Caleb took his nap after that in the car in a shady spot we found (after we hit Sonic's happy hour!) and then we headed to the zoo. It was an absolutely gorgeous sunny day. It was a perfect day for the zoo. All the animals were playing and we got to feed a bunch of them. Caleb's favorites were the prairie dogs, buffaloes, ducks and giraffes.

The giraffes at this zoo have always been my favorite because there is a tall bridge you cross and the giraffes come to the bridge and lick the animal crackers off the cement as you drop them down to them. It's always funny to see a giraffe tongue!

Saturday morning we got breakfast at Burger King and let Caleb play for a while there. It was a dreary, chilly day (we were so glad we'd gone to the zoo Friday afternoon). I went by James Avery to try on a ring I really like and then we went to a couple other stores followed by the children's museum. After lunch we went back to the hotel for Caleb's naptime. After his short nap Friday, he was wearing out. We went back over to ACU and walked around a while. We looked at the sculpture "Jacob's Ladder" also. It was a bit chilly so we didn't stay long. We ate early at Cracker Barrel for supper before it was busy. The boys played a couple rounds of checkers by their fire too. Then we went back to ACU to go bowling. Caleb saw the bowling alley Friday when we were walking around so after that he kept asking if we could go bowling. It was so much fun for us all.

Sunday morning we got to go to the church we attended while at ACU. Caleb enjoyed his 4 year old class. The teacher was the mother of one of my students I had while doing my student teaching. She was a 2nd grader then and now is a sophomore in high school!

We ate lunch at Gattiland and had a great time in their play area on the bumper cars. Caleb was tall enough to ride and he absolutely loved it. We went back to my Mom's that night and came home Monday.

It was such a nice weekend together. We made many happy memories in our favorite place! I was thinking when we were walking around campus Saturday how special it was to have Caleb there. As we were walking around reminiscing from our college dating days, it was special to have him running around the path in front of us and then stop and come back between us told hold our hands.

Another thought from this trip related to our FPU class. We had planned everything we wanted to do and were able to only use cash and put the hotel on the debit card. When we came home I thought how nice it was that it was all paid for and next month we won't see something we did on the credit card bill. In the past we'd put the hotel on it knowing we'd pay it off. It was just delaying paying for it though. It's nice to have it paid for and just have the happy memories to bring home with us!!

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"For great is his love toward us,and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD." Psalm 117:2