Valentine's Day 2010

I think this is the first Valentine's I haven't spent with at least one member of my family. Its weird, I mean Ive never had an actual Valentine, well not since Josh Doyle in elementary school (and yes I still remember you blowing kisses on the bus) but Ive always had mom or Rosa or woody or someone. Abs was the first to send love at midnight, which was super sweet. Im going to be completely honest I thought after church I might treat myself to ice cream or chocolate covered strawberries and be that girl who smiles on the outside but inside is totally bitter and jealous of all you cute and sweet couples. BUT I did not turn into that girl and ill tell you why.

I spent the morning with the youth group making cards to give to people who didnt have valentines, needed a pick me up or were new to the community. The kids were super cute with how they distributed them. I gave mine to Helga and Emily during our pancake breakfast. It was during that time we discussed plans for the day. I should now mention that it was 82 degrees today! Sam had mentioned going to Malibu to the beach, and I wanted to hit up Jetrag for their dollar Sunday sale, so asked if they would like in. Emily only had groveries on her list of STD so we hopped in the car and headed to La Brea.

After making an accidental detour to Goodwill, we got to the parking lot and were amazed at the site. What they do each and every Sunday is dump trucks of clothes in their parking lot and everything-jackets, dresses, pants, shirts, ties, vintage, new, EVERYTHING is a dollar. Em found two really cute skirts and I found a vintage childrens dress, crocheted housecoat-thing, golf pants for woody, dress and couple other random things. Inside I found where bridesmaids dresses and shoes go to die!! Two floors of pure goodness and chaos. I guess a lot of people come here just to hang out and hope to run into celebrities, which is crazy you should just come here because its so darn cool.

After purchasing our goodies we make a quick stop at Ems apartment then are off to the beach. We were going to do Malibu but traffic was crazy-obviously every couple in LA thought the beach was super romantic. So we decided to do Venice, but missed the turn because we were chatting and ended up at Santa Monica Poer. This turned out to be a great thing, we experienced so many good people, music and breakers!

After battling for a parking spot and paying the machine its to the end of the pier. First stop the trapeze act, and who is up first...a 6 year old! Super cute! If youve ever seen this on TV-Girls Next Door, or movies it is filmed on the pier! Next its time to pass about 1000 people with ice cream, and convince myself i dont need it. We pass a guy who makes marble looking sculptures of people, and has recieved a letter from the president (Clinton) for it. Pass the usual name on rice writers, painters, breakers (ill come back to them later,) and end with a beautiful sunset over the ocean. Its sad that to have a sunset so pretty means that the world is in danger. We meet this couple who asks us to take photos of them. A nice little photo turns into a laugh session, life story and hang out for about 30 minutes, ending with a Swedish exchange student coming down from the audience(we were near a performer and in front of bleachers) to take photos of us. After some more chatting and saying goodbye I take photos of people in the sunset, the crowd and we make our way to watch some break dancing.

If you know me you know that I am absolutely in love with surfing and breakin! B-girl Be! So I was super excited to experience a guy from LA and a visiting kid from Minnesota do some great moves. After finding out I was from Maine one of the guys asked if he could go home..literally to Maine with me. He got two little kids to panhandle the crowd for him, and taught a 10 year old how to strip-which his parents thought was hilarious and absolutely appropriate!?!

After witnessing some after dark volleyball, carnival midway and human pyramid Emily and I head back to the car. the day has turned out better than i anticipated and Im so happy to have gotten to know her better. Youll be happy to know she loves swing dancing, plays music, and listens to bluegrass!

Once home(as I will refer to ant and sams for just a little while longer) we are watching family guy. I start writing and the next thing I know G4 is on and Sasha Grey is reporting from the AEE convention...if you dont know what this is its probably better that way. Sam and Ant head to bed and Im too lazy to go across the room and change the channel so for the last 20 minutes I have learned more than my fair share of new and cutting edge stuff!

Oh and I got to chat with Boutros tonight! I just realized that I think we have chatted for most of the holidays and/or important days since my last birthday, totally unplanned. He's with family in Egypt right now, which he left for just days after I finally got to California!?! But I think hes having a great time and Im just happy hes able to get online. Chris if you read this I totally think you should grow your hair out again-the ladies will love it! Especially with the completion of the tat!

I hope all you beautiful people made some great memories today, and didnt forget to smile! I love you all, and am with you in spirit.

Muah,

J