Memory Lane

Mentioning the bee incident this week made me think of our first anniversary, and when I saw that Becky at Something Good was asking "How did you spend your first anniversary?" it gave me the chance to tell the story.



Greg had been on a trip to Uganda and barely made it home the day before the anniversary. He was pretty tired from jet lag. We had agreed I would plan the day, and though I had a lot of ideas, I simplified them because Greg was so pooped.

So we went to Santa Barbara for the day. I packed a picnic lunch and got directions to the Santa Barbara botanical gardens. Figured we could lay out a blanket, eat, and rest for hours. Well, when we got there it wasn't what we expected. It was more... desert-y than we wanted. So we ate, and left to find a prettier place to rest.

The problem was that it was also Father's Day weekend and graduation weekend and there was some big volleyball tournament at the beach. Every street was packed with traffic. We spent so much time in traffic trying to find a pretty place to spread out a blanket that we finally gave up, drove into a residential area, found an elementary school, and used their grass. Greg laid down and immediately fell asleep. And I... well, I had to go to the bathroom. I let him sleep as long as I thought I cold stand it, but eventually he was woken up with the urgent prodding of his wife, "Get up, get up, I need to find a bathroom!" So we found a gas station, and then more traffic, but we decided to head for the beach and try again. Nothing was going as I had planned.

We got to the beach, finally found a parking spot, and set out the blanket for some nice scenery. Uh-oh, I had forgotten my sunglasses, so I went back to the car. I returned and stepped on a bee. Barefoot. BACK to the car, and more traffic and now we're looking for a drugstore for some tweezers to get the stinger out. Oh my.

Niki's foot grows bigger and bigger as we finally find the drugstore. Greg runs in, returns, gets the stinger out and I dry my eyes. Do we try to fight traffic AGAIN? No- let's forget it. We have reservations at one of our favorite restaurants soon, let's just wait in the car till then.

Well, we got to the restaurant and got seated, then Greg's gut started acting out. He had eaten some bad bamboo in Uganda and gotten very sick, and now the remnants were coming back for more. So we are sitting in a nice restaurant and I've got my foot propped up on a chair and Greg's in the bathroom for most of the meal. We decided at that point to scrap our plans about the beach at sunset and just head home.

And this is one more reason I love my husband- because as we drove home, we started laughing. The more we thought about the day of disaster, the more we laughed. And we are so glad now that our anniversary turned out that way, because we will NEVER forget that day! (And I always laugh when I think about it)