Valentine's Day

We celebrated V-Day on Saturday, February 13 and kicked things off with a 5-mile race in Bradford, MA. It was about a 45 minute drive to get to the race and thankfully the weather was pleasant, although a little windy. The race is sponsored by a local church and everything was nice and organized. My goal was to finish in under 40 minutes and my time was 39:49! I didn't win anything in the raffle afterwards, but all the finishers got a flower and a box of chocolates in honor of the holiday.

Pre-race, with a very bundled Sophie

Coming down the hill at the finish line

After the race, where they had yummy food, including homemade soup

I had a good time at the race, so I might do it again next year. Loren and I were supposed to go out on a date that night and drop Sophie off at the church, where some students were offering free babysitting. However, Sophie was sick so we felt guilty leaving her with strangers and other kids. Luckily, our good friends Lindsey and Stephanie Parker babysat for us and we were able to have our date after all. The three of us went to dinner at a Greek restaurant, then we dropped Sophie off and headed to a movie. We saw "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus." I thought it was weird, but Loren really liked it. It was definitely weird.

Also on Saturday night, Loren and I exchanged Valentine's gifts. He got me a beautiful pair of earrings with amethyst stones (that's my birth stone), while I got him a bike helmet. Lest you think my gift was less romantic, I also got up early Sunday morning and made Loren a heart-shaped breakfast tart, plus we had hamburgers for dinner, which was Loren's special request. I guess the way to a man's heart really is through his stomach.

February Catch Up

February has been a busy month and since it's about to end, I thought I had better give an update on what we have been doing. We haven't had very much snow in Boston, although it seems like everywhere south of us has been getting pounded. It's nice not to have to deal with the weather, but the scenery is much uglier without a blanket of snow.

I had my first celebrity spotting ever this month. The occasion was Harvard's Hasty Pudding Society's parade for their woman of the year. The Hasty Pudding Society, so far as I understand it, is a group of guys who cross-dress for their strange events. Hmmm. Anyway, I was walking home from the T (the subway) and saw policemen blocking of the street one block before ours. It turns out the parade was about to start, so I went home to get my camera and got a front row seat for the very start of the parade. Scroll on to see who the woman of the year was!

A few of the lovely ladies

Anne Hathaway!

Also this month was the Harvard LDSSA retreat in the Berkshires, which is an area of western Massachusetts. A member of the stake presidency has a home out there so everyone stayed there. Their house is huge and beautiful, with a pool, hot tub, ping-pong table, trampoline, tennis court and lots of backyard space. We had a good time and Loren was able to play board games the whole weekend, so that kept him happy.

A view from the backyard

And finally, Sophie is growing and getting busier every day. She can now climb on the couch, chairs, etc all by herself and has already fallen off several times. She likes to put mommy or daddy's gloves on her hands.

Crab hands!