Valentine's Day 2015

Usually Valentine’s Day is not really special for me. Let’s be honest. Valentine’s Day without a valentine is pretty lame. But this year, I wasn’t allowing the "day of love" to stop me from having a little fun. I’m out in Northern California working on a short term project in a city called Chico, California. Have you heard of it? Yeah…me neither. It’s tiny. Remote. Isolated. My cell phone doesn’t work. My first hotel had bed bugs. I itched. It rained. So after a pretty rough week, I was determined to make Valentine’s Day fun!

One thing pretty great about California is the weather. It’s February and it’s already warm and the trees are blooming!

I planned a little road trip, and after my co-workers decided they just wanted to rest at the hotel…I decided to go alone! I’m pretty sure God has this planned all along. The 3 hour drive to San Francisco gave me lots of time to think, thank Jesus for putting me on this journey, and to pray for my girl! There was also plenty of time to think about all the things that worry me about this process. But when I start down that road of worry…I do my best to redirect my mind!

I’ve never been to San Francisco, and because I just had a few hours...I did the typical tourist things! I parked and walked towards Pier 39. I watched the sea lions with about 4,000 of my newest friends. (Apparently everyone else had the same idea for today!) After that, I ordered some fried calm strips from a popular Pier 39 restaurant and took my food to a quieter part of the pier to eat. I ate lunch with an amazing view of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.

After lunch, I did a little shopping and grabbed a slice of cookie cake for the road. I drove around the downtown area, got to drive down Lombard Street (aka the crooked street), and wished I had had more time to explore the festival that was going on in China Town.

After the long drive home, I made one finally stop before I headed up the mountain to the hotel. In Starbucks, over a Chestnut Praline Latte, I spent a couple of hours finishing up my application for the Lifeline China Adoption program. One of the little details that I don’t want to forget is that when I was submitting the online application, I looked down and there was a lady bug crawling up the arm of my chair. Ladybugs are sometimes called Chinese beetles. Sign of good luck? Maybe? But I just saw it as one of those things God was using to make me smile!

So excited to be getting this process going!