Chinese Valentine

The day started off with the girls' giving their parents valentines that they had made at school. In fact, two of those valentines were made thanks to me (remember?), so I was not surprised to see Suzanna and Abigail give them to Mommy--although I hadn't seen the content of their Valentine's Day newsletters until this morning after Susan opened them, so that was a sweet surprise. A relaxing day at home followed.

This evening we took Susan out for supper and said that she could choose the restaurant, but she had no strong feelings one way or the other. Therefore I drove to a restaurant that I thought was less likely to be super-busy than some of the more standard spots: we got Chinese food at China Doll, a cozy little spot that's not far from our house, actually, and from which we like to get take-out occasionally. We saw several people there whom we know and got to visit on the way to and fro the buffet. Everything was tasty--and, best of all, Susan didn't have to cook!

Here's a fun Valentine's Day-related tidbit: the girls got a card in the mail the other day from a married couple in our congregation at church. Larry and Margaret were assigned to us as mentors when we first joined St. John (remember?), and we were fine with that; I already knew Margaret as a colleague at work, and they're a friendly, down-to-earth couple whom our girls "took to" right away. Well, Larry and Margaret have "taken to" the girls, too. The card that they sent the girls was a Valentine's Day card in which Margaret wrote a note explaining that, because the girls bring such joy to Larry and Margaret's lives each Sunday with their energetic singing, friendly greetings, and warm hugs, Larry and Margaret decided they wanted to return the love. Inside the card were ten gift certificates to Dairy Queen. How thoughtful! And how wonderful for the girls to receive that gift out of the blue and to read about how their normal behavior and personalities bring joy to others.

I hope somebody brought joy to your life today--and that you did to somebody else's life, too!