Valentine's Day Tea

  

I'm not a huge fan of the whole couple lovey-dovey side of Valentine's Day.  It just seems mean to have a holiday that so blatantly excludes people.  Is that just me?  Anyway, I've been trying to find Valentine's Day traditions can be shared with anyone we love and care about rather than something to do just as a couple. It's actually kind of hard to think of things- and anything I see that is group oriented seems to also be kid oriented.  Not that Doug and I don't love to sit around and finger paint together...but...you know....  I'd seriously love inspiration if any of you have done fun things!

Last year we started our own Vday Box tradition, which was an idea I totally copied from my aunt. (but it's fun!  We'll definitely keep doing it each year)  This year's addition: Valentine's Day Tea.  It was so fun!  Doug's mom came down and the three of us (yep, Doug was man enough to join us.  Not that we gave much of a choice, since we had it all set up and ready right when he gets home to eat lunch during the day) had a fancy lunch together.  I'm pretty sure that a lunch that involves wearing hats is almost always going to go on my list of favorite things, I might just need to find a way to do this again before next February 14!  

Big Band Night

Doug and I went to the coolest thing last night!  I can't believe I went all through BYU without hearing about this.

Isn't Doug's mustache sweet?! Don't worry, he only kept it for the dance.  He is now officially facial hairless

Each year the Saturday before Valentine's Day BYU puts on a big band night with a 1940s theme.  Everyone dresses up to theme to enjoy dinner, live music (from BYU's Jazz band Syncopation), dancing and a show put on by some amazingly talented students.  Did you know about this?  Because if you did I'm seriously mad that you didn't tell me!

Luckily this year our friends invited us to go along with them.  I'm so glad!  I had so much fun planning what to wear.  We went down to my Grandma's house in the morning so she could set my hair in an authentic 1940s style.  It was so fun!  We went through her yearbooks and she showed me all the girls with the prettiest hair and we based the style after theirs.   When we were done my Grandma brought out a picture of my mom in high school- I never thought I looked like her until that moment!  It was almost weird how similar we looked.

The night was fantastic, I can't even tell you how much cooler it is to dance to a live band with amazing, 40s style singers.  I was so glad we'd done a little YouTube swing dancing crash course before we went.  Dancing is so much more fun when you have actual steps to do-  I was only sad that we didn't know how to dance to the waltz, cha cha and tango songs. Turns out it's been a while since my last Social Dance class back in 2003. It was probably a good thing though- I'll probably be recovering from the songs we did dance to for weeks!

Here's my hairstyle complete with Doug's Mom's awesome hat- It was so fun to wear !

In!

Remember this?

Well, I've been patiently trying to forget all about it since I submitted it to the LDS International Art Competition back in October.  Until today, when I got this!

I got in!  I've been an art museum lover all my life and I have to admit, I'm pretty stinking excited to go to a museum and see my name on the plaque next to a piece of art!  The exhibit will be online by the middle of March, I'll put up the link when it's up.

Happy Groundhog's Day

There is part of me that seriously enjoys the fact that we still celebrate a holiday that requires important men to wear top hats and throw science out the window for the opinion of a groundhog. In a weird way it's comforting to know that people will still put a lot of effort into something simply because it makes others happy. I think it might be my favorite minor holiday.  

My doctor currently has me on a practically vegan diet (insert my eye rolling here), which meant no Groundhog's Day meatloaf.  (I know, I know, it's a disgusting tradition and you're all glad you don't have to see photos of it again!) So instead we made a slightly more appealing Groundhog Salad.  I think he turned out kinda cute!