Honey, These Are Our Kids We're Talking About. They Deserve The Best!

Drek and I want to encourage our children to play outside. We live in Sunland, after all, they should get a lot of sun. 

Drek decided Ash needed a simple play structure for Christmas. One with a swing and a slide. He looked at prices, and decided to design and build one himself. 

Several Saturdays later, it was complete. Several more Saturdays later, we finally finished painting it: 

I had no idea he could build something so amazing. I'm trying to convince him that his next project should be a house. 

And Send It Soaring

Sometimes you just want to go to the beach, but it's just to windy to play in the water. That's when you bring kites: 

We love it when family comes to town to play with us!

For Whose Sake The Very Sun Doth Shine

Drek left on a business trip the Sunday before Valentine's Day. He was supposed to come back Wednesday the thirteenth, but complications arose and he stayed an extra day. Thus, my real Valentine's Day present was my husband coming home! 

He called around two in the afternoon, saying he was on his way home. When he arrived at five, he had a flower with him!

 

He has also made reservations at an Italian restaurant we had been to once before and had arranged a baby sitter for Ash. How amazing is that?! For a guy who hates planning/arranging things, he sure did a wonderful job! 

We went to the restaurant and had a wonderful time together. The waitress was an idiot and because of it I ended up accidentally eating meat for the first time in years, but even that could not ruin our date night! 

After dinner Drek said he had bought me a present, which really surprised me. I was still in shock that he had come up with a date idea all by himself, let alone made the reservations and arranged a babysitter. But there was also a present! It was a pearl necklace:

But that's not the amazing part. The amazing part is that back in December,  Drek bought me a few books for Christmas from my "want to read, but the library doesn't have it" list. Two of those book are non fiction books about human trafficking. I'm just getting in to this enormous issue, but already feel very strongly about it. So strongly, I even helped to get a proposition on the ballot for the last election that dealt with human trafficking. Drek bought me those two books, and then read one of them. In the book, he came across NightLight, which is this amazing organization that helps women and children who have been rescued from sex trafficking. 

Drek bought the necklace from NightLight. His purchase goes to support these women and their families. Isn't my husband the best?!  That's got to be one of the most thoughtful gifts a man has ever given a woman. 

And from my last post, the answers are: 

1. Holes

2. Disney's Pocahontas

3. Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls

4. Love Actually

5. Another amazing gift from a husband to his wife. Pharaoh Ramases II built the Temple of Abu Simbel and on the wall wrote: for Nefertari, for whom the sun rises. 

You are My Sunshine

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm not really a romantic person. I don't love Romantic Comedies. I'm not a Jane Austin fan. I have a really hard time reading Romantic novels. I don't like listening to overly-mushy songs.

But occasionally I do hear or read something that melts my cold heart. So, a trivia game! The following phrases are the most romantic things I have ever heard. Can you guess where they are from?

"Oh, Sam, My heart's breaking." "I can fix that." 

"Look at me. I'd rather die tomorrow than live a hundred years without knowing you." 

"And I don't want the world to see me 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand When everything's meant to be broken I just want you to know who I am" 

 "To me, you are perfect - And my wasted heart will love you - Until you look like this"

And a tricky one, but my all time favorite:
"For Whom the Sun Rises"

As a reward for playing, or, just reading this, a recipe I made up!

K La's White Chocolate Raspberry Hearts

2 Cups Sugar
1 Cup Butter
4 Eggs
4 teaspoons Vanilla
3 Cups Flour
3 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
2 cups White Chocolate Chips
3 cups Frozen Raspberries
1/2 c milk chocolate chips
Heart shaped cookie cutter

Cream together butter and sugar. Add wet ingredients and blend until smooth. Add dry ingredients and blend until smooth. Add Raspberries and white chocolate chips. Stir with wooden spoon until more or less mixed in. Smoosh onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 325 for 30 min or until toothpick comes out clean. let cool. Cut into heart shapes. Drizzle with melted milk chocolate chips.