Valentine's Day

Yesterday was a full day. I woke up and went into the kitchen as I do every morning- hopefully before Natty wakes us- to eat breakfast and make coffee. On the kitchen table was a cute picture of Scotty and Natalie that said "Happy Valentine's Day" and two gifts. This was a very nice way to start the morning. I had already decided to make waffles and bacon for breakfast, some of Scotty's favorite breakfast foods. I whipped up some batter, dying it blue since pink is not one of his favorite colors, and then went into the bedroom to open my presents with Scotty. One of the gifts was this beautiful batik that we have seen before and both admired. The other was a very cute necklace and earring set. What a great guy! I had drawn a card for him that listed 10 things inside I loved about him. After breakfast (including a bad, waffle-stuck-to-maker incident) I got busy cooking and baking for lunch and other events coming up. I spent most of the morning and early afternoon at that and taking care of Nats. Mid-afternoon, our small group came over and we had a great time discussing holiness and how to attain it without drifting into legalism. And then, the moment we had all been waiting for- the V-day date. This would be our first time leaving Natalie with someone other than family and we were a tad nervous. A wonderful Bolivian family that live in our neighborhood (in the house we met as a church for the first year) were excited to take the baby for the evening. We packed a bag of goodies for her, including all her favorites and things used in her bedtime routine and drove over. We explained in detail how we put her to bed and when and left confident that she would do fine. Then, we set off for one of our favorite restaurants in town, a little Italian place that we had been wanting to return to for a long time. Alas, upon arriving, we found that they are not open on Saturday nights (what??). We also found that little is open on a Saturday night in La Paz. Obviously we hadn't been out for a while. After driving around a bit, we remembered another Italian place we had wanted to try, and it turned out to be scrumptious. We ate and chatted and enjoyed each others company, not worrying for a minute about Natalie. We walked and ate ice cream and got tired and headed back. Carmen explained to us when we arrived to pick up the baby that she had cried for a long time (boo.), but that she was finally asleep. We realized a few key things that Carmen could have done differently to help her fall asleep, and hopefully can implement those next time. She seems no worse off for the trauma and we were thrilled to have a night to ourselves- a freedom we haven't felt for too long.

Ready for church!