Happy Valentines Day!

This year's Valentine slideshow is coming to you a day late and from afar, but it was lovingly made on February 14th! I am writing this from Central America, already past midnight and thus having just missed Valentines Day. We have been traveling for the last thirty-six hours, and though I have been compiling this slideshow for a few days, finding a trusty internet connection that supports a massive upload has been tricky (luckily I have a techy rockstar husband who somehow connected us remotely to my desktop at home). But as I curl up here in the dark, in the middle of the night in a hotel room that overlooks the Gulf of Panama and the first foriegn city to which I ever traveled alone (nineteen years ago), listening to the sounds of my three best-loved ones breathing, and recount the past year in photographs, I couldn't be more content with my frenzied, fast-paced, ordinary-but-enchantingly-so life. Even as I try to heed the promise to myself to cut back in the coming year, I am reminded, looking over these photographs, how very fortunate I am to do this job, and to have preserved these sweet and fleeting moments.

I'm gonna wash the dust off my soul I'm gonna listen to some rock n' roll No cares, come what may I'm making a beautiful day
I'm gonna drive my car into the sea swim out far cause I believe that the waves will wash the gray away I'm making a beautiful day
Oooh ooohh my my I'm learning to fly Hey hey what's that you're saying Lets not forget we're alive
When we all come together this song will play We'll sing it's a beautiful day And it's gonna be my beautiful day
--Joshua Radin