LOVE.

My Valentine's Day was not supposed to be this sweet, this whole. It was supposed to be the first Valentine's Day in FIVE years I would spend by myself. Drowning in my sorrow, completely cynical. Telling the whole world on Facebook how voided I felt. This year, I reminded myself of who my Valentine's were: 1. God 2. my daddy 3. Nathan!

God is STILL teaching me how utterly in control He is in my life. And how very LITTLE I'm in control of my own.

On Monday:

• I woke up to a homemade ham and cheese omelet
• Was given tickets to see Marc Broussard in CONCERT on March 10th
• Spent the day exploring the zoo
• Spent the late afternoon relaxing and talking about how far MY Valentine and I have come and how far we have left to go.
• To top it all off, we ate dinner at my FAVORITE Birmingham restaurant... Cheesecake Factory!

It was fun and relaxing. To clear my schedule for an entire day, be treated with my favorite things, and laugh and smile with my favorite "animal" at the Birmingham Zoo was a blessing.  It was perfect.

Not once, did Nathan and I take a picture together the entire weekend. Even through Samford's StepSing and all the 54785 other potential photo opportunities! We did remember to take some GREAT pictures of lots of animals at the zoo:



The Biology Major had no idea that flamingo's were famous for standing on only one leg!
The Birmingham Zoo was so, very educational :)

 

I don't remember the name of this animal :) But it's such a GREAT picture!



ANTEATER..... Sometimes God's creation AMAZES me! This is the strangest looking animal ever!




The gorilla!! I don't believe he wanted me to take his picture. 
He's staring me down!!! 




And this animal, my friends, is known as a Kudu!
You would think it was the deer's cousin with the deer-in-the-headlights look it's got going on.
And it's quite jumpy. Oooops!


And if we had known, we would have stuck to our original plan of exploring the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Just as Nathan and I were leaving the zoo, our sweet friends {and Nathan's roommate} were getting ENGAGED at the Botanical Gardens, not even a mile away! We spent the day guessing if we KNEW or if we THOUGHT Tyler was up to something! Imagine the excitement when we walked into the boys' apartment and saw the BIGGEST smile on Tyler's face after dinner with friends. We realized we were SO RIGHT! 

As I think about what Valentine's Day means, I'm glad that I'm not one to get caught up on the "Hallmark Holiday" side of things! To me, this holiday is about the small gestures, the thoughts. This year I'm SO EXCITED I spent time with Nathan, despite the February 14th date! Because honestly, this is the Valentine's Day that wasn't supposed to be...

The most important thing in life is to
learn to give out love, and to let it come in!