Neither Cheryl nor Mark had ever had a really good Valentine's Day, so this year we hoped to make it extra special for each other! Several of our friends helped make the week or so on either side of the day itself a lot of fun, too. A week earlier, the Costello family whom we know from church invited us over for dinner, but Mark didn't think to bring his camera; we made sure we had it with us after that, though!
On 9 February 2001, we had dinner with Cheryl's former co-worker Suzanne and her boyfriend Dave. We went to the Cheesecake Factory, which neither Cheryl nor Mark had been to in a long, long time, and we actually saved room to share some of their famous desserts!
Suzanne works for Gateway Computers now, and had several little "mascots" in the rear seat of their car. Here are Cheryl and Mark with Floppy, who is flanked by Milkshake and Malt.
The next night we had dinner with another of Cheryl's former co-workers, Stacy, and her husband Rick and daughter Cailee. They live within walking distance of one of our favorite restaurants, a Chinese place called Seafood Town, so we met them there and then went over to their house for awhile. Here are Stacy and Cheryl with Cailee and her dog Bones.
Cailee also has a couple of larger dog friends, named Skip and Gilligan. The fence is there to keep them from chewing on her toys, not because she's the least bit afraid of them! We're sorry Rick is not in any of the photos; Mark was having some trouble with the focus modes of his new camera (we think we have them figured out now), and the ones with Rick in them came out blurry.
Mark then went on a business trip to Palm Springs, and returned on Valentine's Day, so we had a quiet dinner in that evening. Cheryl made her signature lasagna, as she had on our first date! Mark had just given Cheryl some flowers for our "luniversary" on the 4th, so on Valentine's Day he had a cookie bouquet from Cookies by Design delivered to her at work. Since Mark wasn't at the lab that day, Cheryl waited until the next day to send him the bouquet above; there was some confusion related to delivery at his secure facility, so we ended up picking the flowers up at the florist shop that evening, but Mark has enjoyed them Friday and all the next week in his office!
On 17 February 2001 we went to a concert by the South Bay Master Chorale, on the theme of "Love Songs for a Small Planet." The South Bay choral music scene must be smaller than we thought; we have a lot of friends from church, the Aerospace Players, the Torrance Civic Chorale, etc., who are in SBMC, and we saw lots more in the audience. In particular, we found Amy outside freezing in the wind as she helped with tickets, and later refreshments. She had been coming to our church for a few weeks, and on the Thursday after the concert she came to join the Senior Choir. So our "Small Planet" becomes a little bit cozier!
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to Photo Albumnew 24 February 2001, revised 2 September 2002