We had such a nice Valentine’s Day. We’re not really into chocolate and roses in this family. We don’t even go for jewelry or electronics but we do have one tradition that I love love love. And that is that the girls get to pick out their own flowers from the flower stand that I used to work at so long ago. I love that little flower stand.

Bug knew exactly what she wanted. She bee-lined it for the sunflowers and completely ignored any of my suggestions. She didn’t want pink roses or any fancy lilies that smell good. She wanted a yellow sunflower, a pink gerber daisy and some green button mums. Nothing else would do. (The picture on the right is of her holding a bouquet for her Grandma Pat who we visited the next day.)

Maybe she had been planning out that bouquet for months as we stroller by this particular flower stand quite frequently. I’m always telling her that we can’t buy flowers today but we will on Valentine’s Day so she has been looking forward to this for a very long time.

Valentine’s Day did not disappoint. It is so fun to pick out your own flowers! I’d trade a thousand boring grocery store pre-made bouquets for my own simple handpicked bundle of hydrangeas, peach roses, ranunculus and lavender sprigs. But I think what really made our day was the silly red sequined plastic heart that Toby bought Bug for a $1.75. That silly heart made her so happy.

I thought that was the end of our Valentine festivities but Toby suggested a little family outing after we finished up with the flowers. Flowers and an adventure? Bring it on! We quickly put our flowers in a watering can on our patio and then piled into the van for a little trip to the beach. Not just any beach though. We were off to the beach of BIG WAVES!

Maybe you’ve heard of The Wedge. It’s a pretty famous surf spot where the waves come in and then bounce off the jetty over top the waves that are still coming in. That probably doesn’t make sense but just imagine two waves crossing each other and the mayhem of water and power that that can create. It can get pretty exciting, especially after a storm. People die there all the time surfing in the dangerous conditions.

It turned out that the waves weren’t very big on Valentine’s Day but it was still a fun place to spend some family time. Bug could have cared less about the waves. She just wanted to climb all over the jetty rocks and play in the sand. We could have dropped her off in a sandbox in Anaheim and she probably would have been just as happy. But that’s okay. Family time together is always good no matter where it is and hey, I got to watch the body boarders and skim-boarders. That was fun for me.

Anytime with Toby is special time.

We even squeezed in a sunset. Not a bad Valentine’s Day at all.

I really should be doing other things than posting these diary illos but they are so fun and easy! I realize this one is not really making sense with the Mr. Fox bit off to the side so let me explain the timeline:

1. we went to the beach. it was windy so we left
2. we took so long to get home that we missed Planet 51
3. we went and saw Fantastic Mr. Fox instead
4. then I was late to start cooking dinner

Just another typical day in the life…

I’ve been thinking about friendship lately. I was peeling open a container of sour cream the other day and it had one of those cliché sayings on it like, “Never let a small disagreement ruin a great friendship.” I’ve heard sayings like that a thousand times but for some reason seeing it on the foil wrapping of a sour cream container stopped me short.

One minute I was thinking about topping a burrito and the next I was a thousand miles away wondering about that one friendship that I lost a long long time ago just because of some stupid silly thing…and now it’s been so long and we’ve both gone such separate ways there is no way I’ll ever get that friendship back.

How dare you bring me down like that you silly sour cream container!

But it did make me think of another friendship I have. I know this girl down the street from my house. I wrote about her once before in that sponsored ice cream post. Just a blip. Her name is Deb and she’s an artist. We met because I was taking Bug on one of our taking-forever-going-nowhere meandering walks down the alley behind our house and Deb was outside her garage painting a colossal canvas by dripping green watercolor paint down it over some strings that she had tied strategically in the shape of leaf membranes. It’s amazing art. I wish she had a website I could link.

Anyway for some reason, maybe because Bug is such a great ice breaker, we got to talking and next thing you know we are fast friends who go on walks on the beach at least once a month. We’d go more often but we both have crazy schedules and we both travel so much we are away from home more than we are home. Funny how life is that way.

Deb isn’t the friend that I lost years ago but I was thinking about her because over the last few months I had called her four times and she never returned my calls. Me being me, who worries about everything and thinks everything is my fault, I thought it might be because the last time she called me I was in the middle of something and I was completely distracted. I have no idea what I said on that phone call but what if I had said something that had offended her!! GASP! Maybe I’m that annoying mom who talks on and on about her kid (Deb doesn’t have kids) and she’s just trying to lose me as a friend?!! Drama drama…etc.

It’s silly that I should ever worry about anything like that because Deb is such a happy-go-lucky sweet sort of girl and she loves Bug. She’s not the type to blow you off. She’s just busy. Four phone calls is a lot of phone calls for her not to return but she’s never ever given me a reason to think she is ignoring me before.

I had a choice. I could just keep my worries to myself and let time go by, possibly even years because I really really don’t want to bug her OR I could write her a quick email and just ask her if I was bugging her. It was a scary thing to do for me to do. Normally I wouldn’t do it. I hate to be annoying but that sour cream container got me thinking!!!

So I emailed her and guess what? I had been calling her work number and not her home number. Doh!!! She’s been super busy and somehow my four messages had got lost in between messages from her many clients!! It turns out she did want to get together with me and we had an amazing time catching up the other day. Our one hour walk on the beach turned into three hours and it just made me so thankful that for once I listened to a cliché on the lid of a sour cream container and took the risk of being that annoying friend who just won’t go away.

Because I don’t want to go away.