Valentine's Day, Monrovia Falls, and Other February Stuff

February flew by.  Here are the highlights.  Or at least the ones I have pictures of.

Leading up to Valentine's Day, we spent the week doing Secret Cupid.  My friend Rachel, who is one of the most amazing people I know, gave me this idea years ago and we've done it in past years to lesser extent, but this year after being reminded thanks to her podcast (3 in 30 Podcast- if you haven't been listening, you should!) I actually bought a bunch of small little treats, lip glosses, balloons on sticks, etc. and each of us (me and Paul included) went "shopping" at the "secret cupid store" set up on our bed.  The girls had so much fun with it, especially with the part about being sneaky, and we made sure that service was a big part of it.  

I love that Clara came up with the idea all on her own to organize their shoe closet since Rose can never seem to find her shoes.  I would give Rose ideas for how to serve her person (Paul) and she did a great job bringing in the garbage cans from the street.  Little things like that made such a big difference in the mood of our house.

Valentine's Day itself was a little lackluster since it was so busy with school (I'm room mom again and was in charge of the class breakfast/party), work and ice skating lessons, followed by a dance that I was pretty much in charge of for our stake.  But Paul gave me and Clara and Rose flowers, cards and chocolate covered strawberries and we all felt very loved.  The girls and I still  managed to sneak over to the parking garage at BART and heart attack Paul's car too.

I spaced and forgot that Rose's dance class was going to do a little Valentine's Day party after class.  But since it was the day AFTER Valentine's Day and her class is right next to a Wal-Mart, I just ran in and grabbed a leftover bouquet of roses that had been marked down and she passed those out in lieu of actual Valentines.  

The girls got a care package from Tabby with these little princess nail polishes in it.  It's water-based and just peels off so both girls had fun painting their nails over and over and over.  Rose even gave me a manicure.  

Clara finally got back into gymnastics after a much longer-than-anticipated-break after breaking her arm last September.  We had to release her spot in the session she had just started last fall and then had a heck of a time getting her registered back in because the gym is so busy these days!  She was on the waitlist forever, but finally got the call that a space had opened up and she could start in February.  Despite her somber expression, she is actually loving being back and her coach said she is actually progressing so fast that they are moving her from the Beginner class to the Advanced Beginners, which basically means she will be practicing on the high beam instead of the low beam and working on more difficult skills like backwalkovers and the like now.

We've been doing a lot of ice skating lately.  The girls finished up their first 7-week session of lessons and are actually starting to move and glide and stop intentionally now.  And on a rare day off of school, I took them to the rink for some fun free skating.  Rose still likes to cling and hold and hand, but at least I don't have to bend over and support her under the armpits like I used to, which is back breaking work!

They especially loved watching figure skating during the Olympics and were inspired to keep going back to their lessons because of it.  When the session ended, Clara was moved up to the Tots 2 class, although Rose is repeating Tots 1.  It's another 7-weeks that ends mid-April and I'm not sure if we will continue it through the summer, but it's fun to watch the girls having fun out on the ice and getting back up when they fall down.  If we DO keep it up, I'm pretty sure Clara is going to be asking for ice skates for her May birthday, lol.

Also, I sometimes use Instagram stories and write on my pictures and I don't have a blank copy of this one, which is too bad because I love it of me and the girls.  Oh well.

Paul continues to work hard to keep our house nice.  He did a bunch of clean up in the backyard the other week - trimming shrubs/trees, removing leaves, that sort of stuff.  And the girls loved playing on the hill.  We kind of got out of the habit of using our back yard to explore when it was all dirt this past year and then once the grass was in the weather got cold, so it's only now that things are starting to warm up a bit that we are using it more.

Paul and I realized that we had most of our weekends booked through April and we had been meaning to get down to Southern California to visit Tabby, so we were glad that she was able to see us on a Saturday in February.  Paul was already in SoCal for work, so the girls and I drove down on a Friday after school and met up with Tabby Saturday morning to hike Monrovia Canyon up to the Monrovia waterfall.  

It was a great, easy hike and I find it really rewarding to reach a waterfall at the end of a hike.  The girls loved dipping their hair in the water, scooping it up in their hands, and wading in it. We had a few sad minutes after Rose tripped over a rock while trying to pass Paul on the trail and cut open her left knee in a pretty impressive gash on a jagged edge of the rock.  Rose has always been one to dwell on minor injuries, especially if I don't have a band-aid to cover it up, so I was worried about how she would fare for the rest of the hike.  But fortunately I had brought water bottles and was able to wash off the blood (Rose goes into panic mode at the sight of blood - it's both sad and hilarious) and get her moving again and she was able to shake it off and still have a fun time.

The girls always love spending time with Tabby and usually in the past we have gone to Disneyland when we go to visit, but it was so nice getting out and spending the morning with her hiking and exploring for a change.  

Then over President's Day weekend we drove up to Auburn to spend a few days with our friends, the Millers.  I was terrible and hardly took any photos at all, but on Friday night Jason & Ginny got two girls from their ward to watch the kids while the grown-ups went to a delicious Cambodian restaurant (the tea leaf salad was amazing) and a concert.  Then on Saturday we hit up the farmer's market and played a lot of Aggravation.  

We also went on a little hike while we were there because Ginny had taken her kids earlier in the week and seen a whole bunch of salamanders in the canal.  Clara is pretty fearless about holding creatures like worms and stuff and she got right down into the creek with Ollie and Max to catch salamanders. 

And that was our February!  I still need to go back and pull together a post of January pictures, but then I will be caught up!