Froggy visits Long Beach
Finally got to meet mrnicefrog this Monday! penster came over to Long Beach and picked me up (after a brief Scraptastic! meeting where she became my first official paying client!). Actually, before we leave my apartment, I want to share how awesome the scarf that she made and that I won for attending last weekend’s Yarnola Chat is. It is uber fantabulous and I am so lucky to have won it! Thanks chica, for knitting it and for donating it such an awesome event!
And you’d think that would be enough, but no! She also had a super cute purse gift bag (seriously, it has circle handles!) for me from canutius! It held none other than my birthday present! Man, my birthday month sure started out awesome! Guess what was in it? Guess! It was the super cute and beautifully orange flame shawl! Pen had me model it out on the balcony, so you will see a pic soon(ish – if you prod her with a pointy stick, perhaps). It is so wonderful, thank you Canoodles for the awesome surprise! *hugs*
OK, so now we can walk out the door and head to the Aquarium where Froggy had already been waiting for us for about half an hour. It seems none of his text messages were getting to me. It’s a good thing we decided to leave when we did then and not stall any longer!
As was expected, there were fifty million people at the Aquarium that day (OK, more like a little over 7,000 people, but that is still a lot for the Aquarium!) but I was still able to show them around. We got to see the entire Aquarium, even caught the 3:15 p.m. Seals and Sea Lions Training and Feeding Session. We waited for about ten minutes for it to start out in the blazing sun (it was so hot and humid!), I am glad they thought it was worth the wait! 😀
After checking out the galleries (Froggy really liked the leafy sea dragons and pointed out that most of the fish in our Sex Change exhibit were pink – hmm…) I took them up to Big Trop to feed the fishies in our 350,000 gallon exhibit. After a quick stop at the gift shop, we went outside and decided on eating at Bubba Gump’s across the street.
So, we stuffed our faces with shrimp and other seafood and talked (and watched Forrest Gump on the projection since it was right next to us and kinda hard to ignore). I often found myself just listening to Froggy’s voice which was certainly a nice priviledge. I don’t think I ever heard a French/British English accent before and found it quite lovely. Man do I love accents, total sucker for them! hahaha!
Anyway, we headed back to my apartment to hang out a little while where Froggy shared some of his favorite boeluen stories with us. We were all thinking it but it wasn’t mentioned until Froggy said it–how strange it was to have Froggy here and not Boe. This trip was for her, she helped him get here (and he’ll even argue that simply was her!) and to not have her here, well, it was the elephant in the room. But you know, it was nice to finally be able to talk face to face with him about what happened, how he felt and where he was going from here. Being able to share stories about how fabulous and wonderful a person Boe was and smile and laugh about her courage and tenacity.
He loved the scrapbook. He had of course already seen it in the making as images were posted to Flickr, but now he has the actual phyiscal book. (If any of you would like to continue to add to it, it is an expandable book and project, so feel free to contact me at any time for help and specifications.) Thanks to all who contributed! If I missed something, please let me know and I will try to rectify the situation. But yes, it is a very precious project and I was very proud to do that for him. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without all your contributions!
Eventually, it was time to go for Froggy and Pen to head back, so off they went. Froggy is probably all done touring The Huntington with bird_mom by now, and I know they must’ve had a great time!
Thanks for visiting us, Froggy!