His and Hers Valentine's Day

Dan and I both had a long weekend off for Valentine's Day/President's Day weekend (thanks to the wonderful, holiday-happy school schedule!). We had a date night on Friday night to celebrate Valentine's day a little early, and Dan took me out for a delicious Chinese dinner and we saw "She's Just Not That Into You." (my pick, of course) It was such a fun, relaxing evening, and I'm always amazed at how much we enjoy talking and laughing and just being with each other no matter where we are! I'm such a blessed wife!

On Saturday morning, I woke up to find these waiting to greet me:


Aren't they beautiful? We spent Valentine's Day morning taking a walk on the beach and then ate brunch at one of our favorite breakfast places in our neighborhood.

On Sunday after church, it was Dan's turn. We went to lunch at Claim Jumper's on the way up to Anaheim, where we watched the Anaheim Ducks play the Atlanta Thrashers! Now that's Dan's idea of a romantic getaway! :)

Then to top off a perfect weekend, we both had Monday off to relax and get a few errands taken care of before going back to work.

An Ode to Spiders

So last night I was complaining to Dan about spiders. We find them trying to take up residence in our house pretty regularly (until we squash them like the bugs that they are), and ever since we moved away from Denver, I've had spiders living in my car. I hardly ever see them, but they like to weave intricate webs across my windshield. One time I gave them a week at it, just to see if I had a Charlotte's Web spider who was trying to spell something out that would forever change my life. I got nothing.

Anyway, yesterday morning my road buddies had woven their web across my driver's side door, probably just for laughs or as a frail attempt to keep me out of the car. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until I got in and then spent the whole drive to work picking spider webs out of my hair and eyelashes. Blech. I've always hated pranks.

But then I realized how lucky Dan and I have been to live in cities with dry climates for the past 9 years, because there's a long list of insects that we grew up with back east that we never come in contact with now. And we don't miss them even a little bit.

So while we are not spider lovers, we realize that they do have their charms, such as:

• they just want a nice, quiet, dark corner in which to exist
• they work alone
• they are not interested in human food
• they do not make noise
• they often freeze when they sense danger (thus making them easier to capture/kill)

And here's the list of Insects We Would Be Happy to Never Meet Again (in order of offensiveness):

1. Mosquitoes - horrible disease-carrying blood-suckers
2. Flies - their favorite food is poop. And then they want to put their nasty fly feet all over your body and picnic food
3. Bees - if your shampoo or deodorant make you smell like a flower, they hover over you like the annoying sibling who holds his finger 1/8" from your nose and keeps saying "I'm not touching you!" And you're afraid to swat at them because you might get stung.
4. Chiggers - I bordered on self-mutilation as a kid, trying to get their bites to stop itching.
5. Cockroaches - synonymous with "dirty," and I've seen them grow big enough to tackle small mammals.
6. Ants - if you see one, you know you've got a big problem somewhere nearby.
7. Gnats - you're enjoying an innocent, pleasant stroll through the park, when suddenly you walk face-first into a gnat orgy!
8. Crickets - nothing that small should be that loud. If you've ever gotten one in your house, you know you're not sleeping until you find it and throw it back outside. (for the record, Dan likes crickets, but he's not writing this now is he?)

We probably won't stop complaining about spiders, but since our families are back east, we'll always have opportunities to visit our old bug friends and realize how much worse it could be!