February Lovin': Part One.

There is just so much that I love about February. Valentines not necessarily included. 

What I love most is that February is Cubby's birthday month! The 5th of Febs is when that darling man was brought into this world.

I get more excited for Cubby's birthday than I do my own. It probably has something to do with the planning, which I've always enjoyed as much as I do the party. 

Last year he came up to see me at Davis and we went to San Francisco for the weekend. 

We stayed just across the bay in Emeryville at Cubby's best friend's apartment and were given the greatest tour of the city by Cubby's older brother, Lyle, who lived in the Sunset District at the time. 

It was non stop happiness.

Becoming part of the masterpiece at an interesting art exhibit for local artists right outside the lovely vegetarian restaurant Greens that Lyle treated us to.

A favorite surf spot... and a pretty cool bridge, I guess.

Top of the world!

That city holds a lot of fond memories.

...

This year, things were a bit different.

Cubby was buried too deep under a pile of ochem work to see the light of day during the weeks that lead up to his birthday so I decided to take celebratory matters into my own hands. I granted him Friday and Sunday after his birthday to do as much studying as he pleased but I mercilessly demanded that he leave all of his Saturday birthday open to fun.

Thanks to a paycheck crisis misunderstanding with my job, I was broke as a joke until the morning of Cubby's birthday. Which left me to only my wits and imagination when planning this occasion. 

I ended up embracing old school little kid birthdays and decorated the cottage with construction paper. 

Lots of construction paper.

And an oversized red velvet cake.

I just wanted him to have a decorated place to come home to after the day's events. :)

Here are some awkward photos of the cottage that I snapped while running out the door to go pick up the birthday boy... I knew there wouldn't be much time for pictures later!

Gfunk helped me with the daisy chains while we sipped tea and watched A Moment in Time together earlier in the week.

I just really  like birthday banners. And TJ salt water taffy. 

Any excuse for balloons, really.

I brought him some 'homemade' cinnamon rolls, (TJ's cinnamon rolls that come in a freezer can? so good I can't even explain) and we headed up the coast.

Our destination?

The Aquarium. 

Luckily, Cubs had never been to the Aquarium of the Pacific. 

Luckier, the tickets were free- I sweet talked a senior citizen Aquarium volunteer that I met at a work event to hook a broke sister up. 

So we spent the afternoon narrating voices for all the fishies, petting sting rays, staring a jellies, falling in love with the most adorable little sand pipers, shamelessly cooing over the sea otters and puffins, and proudly resisting the urge to buy this amazing tee-shirt at the gift shop.

 I always cover my eyes in the HIDEOUSLY LARGE crab exhibit. He found them 'cool' looking.

I forgot my camera in the car and couldn't be bothered to go get it. It's hard to take photos when everything is behind 6-15 inches of glass, anyways. 

Then we went to Shoreline Village for chocolate truffles and hot-sauce tasting. I liked the hat shop, Cubs liked the pirate shop.

These are the only pictures I got when we finally sat down to munch on the truffles by the marina. We picked out the prettiest boat and were planning on commandeering it until we realized that neither of us would know what to do with a sail boat so we let them keep it. ;)

One day we'll have a boat.

Raspberry, Kahula, and Peppermint truffles: yum yum yum.

Then we headed home to the construction paper cottage to listen to gfunk recite her adorable birthday poem to cubby and pick up the cake. (More on grandma's birthday poems later... like, the next time there's a birthday.)

For dinner, we went to Fiesta Grill with friends then Ruby's for shakes. We concluded the night with movies and Scrabble. I fell asleep mid-Scrabble but I don't think we were playing for points anyways.

All in all, it was a very happy way to turn 20. I'm pretty sure the birthday boy forgot about his school work for an entire day, which I consider a mission accomplished.

And of course, February 6th was Super Bowl Sunday. My first real Super Bowl Sunday. So we homeworked and workworked in the morning then ate too much all afternoon  watched the game at a friend's party.

One last thing:

Shout out to Kate Wolf, my best friend in Santa Cruz. Her birthday was on the 8th. She lives in Santa Cruz and I still have her present in my purse. I'm horrible with the post. We'll celebrate when we're together. 

Did I mention that I just love February?

Disclaimer: The lack of pictures here is because I'm not used to documenting everything. I find it kind of hard to live in the moment and take photos at the same time but I'll get better at it!