Date Weekend

Our move to Lake Jackson and all the subsequent settling in to a new apartment, job, ward, etc. kept us busy, and Valentine's kind of crept up on us. On the Saturday before Valentine's, Bowman and I simultaneously realized that neither of us had made any kind of plans for a celebration, so we decided to put it off a week and have an "official" Valentine's Date Weekend the next weekend. Bowman is the master of all surprises and date-planning, so I told him this time I would be the one to plan it. And plan it I did. And it was awesome...

On Friday while Bowman was at work I worked on my favorite Valentine's tradition of all time: the giant sugar cookies! Mom, thank you so much for this tradition! Growing up my mom always made a huge sugar cookie for each of us. She has beautiful decorating skills and the cookies would always be frosted with our names and all sorts of fancy sprinkles and frosting. Since we got married I've tried to make and decorate the cookies myself. Here are this year's editions:

Amateurish, yes. But delicious, definitely yes.

So I arranged the finished cookies on the table with a few other things I'd gotten for Bowman, like the picture frame and the book. Then Rayna and I went to pick up Bowman from work. We went out to a Japanese restaurant and we loved it! It was a teppanyaki-style place which we'd never tried before. So delish and so fun.

Then on Saturday we had a lovely morning sleeping in. Actually, I don't count it as sleeping in when you've been up until 3:00 with a little person who is definitely the boss of who does what when. But anyway, after "sleeping in" we made some sack lunches and drove out to the beach. It was cold, but not Utah cold. We got out for a little bit, walked in the water just enough to cover our sandals, almost lost toes due to the freezing water temperatures, and then ate our lunches inside our warm car. We walked out on the jetty and Bowman dreamed of the day when it will be warm enough to join the other crazies who were out surfing.

We had such a blast! It was so nice to have a weekend just for the three of us with no homework or responsibilities!

Plus... a few pictures of Rayna, because she's cute...

In her pajamas, getting ready for bed


With her new blanket from Aunt Amy

Is that a smile...??