The Perfect Gift

{due to serious technical difficulties at the skinner household, there will not be pictures with posts for some time - other than random internet uploads}

our family of four piled into the car and headed to an undisclosed location to 'pick something out' for my valentines present from dan. not surprisingly, home depot was fairly abandoned since it was valentines night. once we pulled up i had an idea of what dan had in store. i have been wanting a ficus tree for a couple years; i love them and our last one died in tucson.

i was wrong. he thought of something even better.

a gardenia.

i already have two outside my front door, in humongous pots, and they are beautiful. if you haven't smelled a gardenia you are missing out! the problem with mine is that when i came back to az after being in utah for 6 weeks last august/september they were practically dead. i have slowly nursed them back to health and they look wonderful - except for no buds and no blossoms.

my dad's favorite flower was the gardenia. we always had them growing up and they were also on his casket.

today is his birthday.

i wanted my gardenias to have flowers blooming today, so badly - in honor of my dad. my sweet husband must have heard me say that and remembered.

outside my front door, right now, on my dad's birthday, i have a beautiful, blooming gardenia.

the perfect valentines gift.

it is also my father-in-law's birthday today and i am so grateful for his influence in my life, as a father figure, especially now, as a grandpa to my kids, and for raising the amazing man that is my husband. i feel lucky to have such great men in my life.