A train of thought led to this...Valentines Day.

I have been reminiscent lately. I love my memories. I reflect often about the life I have lived. It allows me to appreciate the now. The few days prior to Valentines Day I was thinking of when I lived in Europe. A friend from the states and I decided to meet up in Spain. We had a theme for our travels. A line from a Rusted Root song, "all I need is food and creative love." What a fantastic time we had. You can see why this particular memory came creeping up on me around the day of love. I remember being in Segovia in a little restaurant. We had become a part of a tribe of backpackers. We had known each other for maybe 2 hours and there we were at a farm style table eating as the locals. We didn't have our separate meals on separate dishes everything was shared (I know you're probably gagging, right?). I remember the sense of love and community that was there. With this, I wanted to create a similar type of meal for my girls this year for Valentines Day, something away from the traditional red food cut in the shape of hearts. I was stumped though because there would be no way I could have pulled off such an amazing European meal. This led me to another memory (I am not joking when I said I have been reminiscent)hot pots, the memory of hot pots. In my single days one of my favorite dinners I would have with friends were hot pots, think the Melting Pot. A whole dinner fondue style. I loved it. We would all sit around and have our dinner cook infront of us and eat right out of the electric wok. Same sharing and community, same love. So that is what I did. My girls and I pulled out the electric wok and had so much fun having dinner cook right on the table as we sat around laughing and talking. Hooray, We had such a great day of love!


Here is another memory. Last Valentines was definitely one of my favorites. My sister so kindly came out to CA to watch our kids so Jer and I could have a weekend getaway. We spent the weekend in Santa Cruz, hiking through redwoods and trying to fit in to a much cooler crowd than we actually were/are.




I know the blue coat is a little distracting, but don't stop there, the tree behind us is amazing.