Valentine's Day Revisited

We walked by a lonely heart-shaped balloon on Valentine's Day. Someone left a message on it: Love is in the air! It was a wet, cold day and I wasn't really feeling the love on Stanford's campus. Is there something about Mormons and dressing up, decorating, and really getting into holidays? I seem to remember people making a big to-do about Valentine's Day at BYU. Maybe that's just because BYU is full of love-crazed singles and sickeningly sweet newlyweds. I digress.

Will and I donned our rain boots for a morning walk to school with Britton. It was very romantic. I felt really scrubby and hoped we wouldn't run into anyone I knew. Luckily Stanford has a large, sprawling campus and a small student population so running into someone you know isn't very likely. Elliot slept in the plastic-covered stroller for the whole trip.
Will was pretty disappointed that he couldn't really go to school with Daddy. I told him that it was just a bunch of boring computers and nerds inside, but he was still really mad. Splashing in some puddles on the way home helped him feel better. By the time lunch came around he was much happier.
He likes to ride this rusty, old scooter which he affectionately calls "my skateboard". There's no rubber grips on the handlebar so I'm afraid someday he'll accidentally fall on it and impale himself. But he loves it.
He got out the Valentine's pillowcase Nana just made for him, and had a quick picnic by the playground. PB&J with oranges is the default lunch around here.
I felt bad asking someone to babysit for us on the actual Valentine's Day so we waited until Wednesday night when Britton's little bro Derek volunteered to babysit for us. He took both boys and did a great job. He actually got engaged on V Day! A DD devoted post is soon to come.

I was craving seafood so we went to the local Fish Market restaurant and enjoyed some prawns, clam chowder, and spicy tuna rolls. Then we headed to Borders to browse and pick out some books for ourselves. You can see our personalities in our book choices. It was a low-key night, but a treat considering we haven't spent much time as a couple at least since Elliot came along. Hope you all had a fun V Day too.

CA Job

My new job for this year is being a CA for my courtyard. CA stands for Community Assistant. I had to complete some training on things like sexual harassment, relationship abuse, suicide prevention, and other sad topics. The BEST part of my job, however is planning activities for my neighbors!
Our opening social this year featured catered Mexican food, and a piñata. Was that all? Well, it was a ton of fun. We had a big turnout and I got to meet and talk with a lot of neighbors. I know the families who are regulars at the playground, but there's a lot of families that have babies or are busy and I don't know very well. It's still mostly girls on the playground, but Will doesn't mind. He adores all the older girls and they play with him really well. One day I came outside to follow Will and two girls ran up to me saying, "I gave Will a hug and two kisses." "I gave Will a pretty rock!" So he's well loved.
Back to the party... Will had his first whack at a watermelon piñata. And Britton invited the missionaries over for dinner that night so they joined the party towards the end!



Our next big upcoming activity is the Halloween Party! There is nothing cuter than kids in costume with a sugar high. I can't wait. Will is going to be a ninja for Halloween this year. Britton is going to show him how it's done.

Rachel's Visit

I love it when old friends come to visit! It's like part of me has been forgotten, and then suddenly comes back to life while they're around. Rachel and I have been friends since middle school. We used to tell people we were the same but different. I'm still not really sure what that means but I think we were trying to tell people we were happy to have a friend we shared so much with, but we also had differences and that was OK. I'm lucky that she has business trips in this area because I never seem to make it over to Boston.
Rachel almost always has her camera out so I hardly ever take pictures while she's visiting. So I'm using all her pictures for this post. She took a LOT of pictures and I can't help but share a LOT of them with you.







We did other stuff besides playing with Will. In fact, I think I planned so much stuff we were all exhausted by the time Rachel left for her conference.
First I took her for a quick walk up to "the dish". We just walked up the first hill of this nearby trail to get an amazing view across the bay, the Santa Clara valley, and the small mountain range between us and the ocean.
I can't believe how green everything is right now. It was a wonderful way to start the day.

Later we met up with another friend of mine and went out for Crepes. Yumm! We went to Crepes Cafe in Menlo Park and I still dream about the caramelized apple crepe. The apples were swimming in butter and I think Julia Childs would have approved.We also went to the Stanford Cantor Arts Center.

My favorite was the Asian art section. Will can say Buddha now. Ashley and Rachel held Will a lot during our trip which was so nice for me. My arms are getting a little too buff lately.
And Rachel came to church with us on Sunday and graciously helped entertain and comfort the little kids in nursery. I think Will really appreciated having someone he knew in there.
We had tons of fun in a short amount of time, and she just told me she might be out here again in April. I'll try to make any future visits more low-key, I promise.

Master Britton

Do we have to call him Master now? Britton received his Masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering last week. (two weeks ago?) And he's not done yet! He has about three more years of focusing on his research and creating a disertation masterpiece before he is completely done with school. And then even after that he will probably do a "post-doc" which will take another year. This man was made for school and homework. It's OK though. I love his flexible schedule.
So for this graduation we had just close family come. And Paola, Clark, and Clark's brother Bobby. It was a nice, to-the-point ceremony with only a small graduating class. Plus they tried to make it more entertaining than serious by introducing the professors with a baby picture along with their current picture. Very cute. One of the professors was shown riding a little airplane as a kid.
Congratulations Britton! You have really rocked this grad school thing:)

A few views of Stanfordius

There's nothing better than going for a walk on a warm, lazy Sunday afternoon. Yesterday I realized that after living on Stanford's campus for almost two months, I've only walked through the main part of campus once. So I grabbed my camera to experience the campus a little more. Here are some of the pictures I got. Here's a view of the Memorial Hall with the bell tower in the back. I'm not sure what all the vases are for in front of the hall, but I like them.

This is the courtyard in Memorial Hall.
Jane Stanford built this church in memory of her husband. For more information about him you can ask Alex Olson! He has newly become an expert on the subject due to his 4th grade project. The actual university is named after their son Leland Stanford Jr. Anyway I learned from Stanford's website that the church's facade has over 20,000 shades of color, and since 1903 about 7,500 couples have been married in it! There were two couples having their pictures taken around the quad while I was there. While I was walking around the sun decided to come out, and its brightness gave the church a great silouette.

Every graduating class at Stanford has their own tile put around the quad. You can see in the picture how the tiles just go on and on... I wonder what they'll do if they run out of space. I hope you enjoyed your short tour of campus with me. Tune in next time for more fun pictures.