A Valentine's to Remember

This year we had our annual family Valentine's dinner on the 12th because we had a birthday party to attend on the actual day. 

I decided to decorate the night before so the girls could wake up and get excited for the dinner later that night. The dinner went well and I was smart enough to hold off on revealing any candy or presents until after dinner had been eaten.

Actual Valentine's Day started a little unusual. Elise had thrown up the day before so I stayed home from work with her. Sadie excitedly went off to school with her little Valentines for her classmates. 

Elise's stomach was feeling better so we picked up some donuts and ran a few errands before picking Sadie up from school. Elise had been begging to go see Dad at "bayou" (translation: BYU), so we drove the 15 minutes down to him to say hello. The girls were sad when he went back into the Marriott Center for practice so I suggested some Jamba Juice smoothies. As I was turning into the parking lot I noticed the car behind me was coming up on me fast. She noticed- too late- that I had my turn signal on and attempted to get into the lane to her left to avoid hitting me. There was a car there and she swerved sharply back, hitting our rear bumper in the process. 

The funny thing about it all is if she had just stayed in our lane and slowed down she probably wouldn't have hit us. Her car wasn't damaged at all and ours just needed a new rear bumper.

The other driver was an 18-year-old girl who immediately pulled over and jumped out of her car to make sure we were all okay. When she saw I was pregnant she freaked out a little more. My girls actually didn't even notice we were in an accident because it felt like driving over a curb or big pothole. I called Daniel to see his opinion on calling the police, which he insisted we had to do. The girl called her dad and got yelled at. I felt really bad for her but I knew Daniel was probably right to call the police. We waited for about 45 minutes for the police to come. The girl stayed by our van and talked to me and my kids the whole time. She was so apologetic and kept telling me it was all her fault. The police officer that came was super reasonable and calm. She gave the other driver a ticket, made sure we were all okay, and went on her way. My kids still insisted on Jamba Juice so that's where we went. By the time we got back home I brought Sadie to a play date she was late for, put Elise down for a nap and spent the next couple hours on the phone with car insurance companies. This was my first car accident, and man, are they annoying or what? Daniel pointed out that we want a car accident that seems like an annoyance and isn't a tragedy or even the cause of minor injuries. We were all completely fine.

Finally late in the afternoon we headed to our neighbor's birthday party. They had invited a bunch of families from the neighborhood for pizza and cake, a bouncy house in their garage, and various other games. I love birthday parties that involve the whole family. We hung out for a few hours and brought our exhausted kids home for bed.