Valentine's Day Update

Sorry for the tease last night. (My best friend may have looked in here before coming over today and I wanted her to be as surprised as I was.)

Aaaaaaaanyway, my older son who has been gone in Central America for months and wasn't due home until late Thursday night, came home early last night just to surprise me! Apparently, he'd planned this, along with my ex-husband who had to pick him up from the airport, since before he went away last November. My younger son was in on it too.

It didn't register when I saw his face peeking around the corner at me. It literally took me a minute. And then I burst out crying. (Man, I'm an emotional mess lately. Not sleeping isn't helping.)

I'm used to him being away for long stretches, between army stints and missionary work overseas, I'm used to him not being here for the holidays, etc. And this was a shorter time away than in the past and I've handled those fine. Not surprisingly, considering what's been going on in my life, this time I missed him so much more.

We talked very late into the night and I'm feeling a wee bit less lonely today. And it's a cold sunny day here after getting a dusting of snow in the early morning hours. Magic still exists.

(We've had an amazingly warm and drearingly wet winter with no snow except on the mountains until now. On top of that, my younger son recently finished repainting my living/dining/entrance/hallway and new pictures are framed and hung and I'm now surrounded by an entirely new and beautiful environment.)

It was a lovely Valentine's gift from him, from my younger son and from my ex.

Later he'll be heading to his girlfriend's university, flowers in hand, to surprise HER. I can only imagine what THAT's gonna be like. *smiiiiiile*