Don't we look young!
Mike you are absolutley gorgeous!!
(I don't look so bad myself.)
This Picture was taken in 1999, we were about to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary. On our 1st wedding anniversary we went to the Anniversary Inn...where else! And we stayed in the luxurious palace room. It was very romantic with a cheesecake dessert waiting for us in our room and a yummy breakfast to devour when we decided to finally get up, there was no rush, there were no children to hurry home to, no sitter to pay/relatives to relieve of our sometimes over-active children.
Eleven years later our anniversary get-a-way was not quite the same. Now that we have children our dates, our vacations and even our anniversary get-a-ways take a lot more work! This year I was in charge, (we switch years who plans) and I must admit I left some of that important planning to the last minute - I had my reasons, they come later. We tried for a overnight trip a month early because my mother was in between jobs and with her new found availability I thought she could watch our kids, but then she got a job and our free-babysitter fell through. We were forced to scramble and find someone last minute because I had booked our room in Park City through Hotwire and we were not allowed any cancellations/changes. We didn't want to be out the money and thankfully my sweetie of a sis-in-law was willing to take the kids on for the next 24 hours - everyone minus the baby. (She has a baby Mo's age and she certainly didn't need 8 children, 2 of which were babies on her hands - I could never inflict such torture on anyone)! Well, a "romantic" overnight trip just doesn't happen when you bring the tempermental tot along. But we did accomplish one of our goals for the weekend - seek and destroy that birthday/Christmas list...with clearance shopping for cute clothes at the Park City outlets and toy shopping at Toys R Us back in the valley our Oct. Nov. and Dec. b-days and then the big one - Christmas were almost complete.
THEN we tried again...this time much closer to our anniversary so I wouldn't have babysitter troubles again - see I had my reasons. But I was striking out...My mom - busy. The neighborhood girls - busy! (There was a dance). I guess this time I waited too long to find a sitter, is there a special window I'm missing here? Wait! My in-laws, if I we could bring our children to them, maybe they could watch them while we ate a nicer-than-usual dinner at the Maddox in Brigham City. Success! They were available, hooray!
We drove through a storm and I asked Mike twice if maybe we shouldn't just bag it and go home, was it really worth driving to Brigham in a storm like this? Yes. Yes it was! We were going on our anniversary date and a little rain turned snow was not stopping us. What about when the baby started screaming in the car, nope that wasn't stopping us either. We were about half way there when that high pitched screeching began, we had a lot of road behind us, we weren't turning around now! This time I was the one putting my foot down. "Let's just keep going, were NOT stopping, we'll put some food in her when we get the Grandma's and then we'll go on our romantic date!" I grumbled. Romantic huh?
(Sidenote: This was not our Winter Advisory Blizzard, it was the storm before that one, the one where it dumped on us during the middle of the night.)
Well, we finally made it, we put some food in the baby and we took off for our romantic dinner for two.
Um, that didn't happen so much...why you ask? Did the stressful ride chase away our romantic mood, did we miss our reservation, did we get in a fight? No. It happened again (*yes this same thing has happened before)...we got seated right next to the kitchen door and we got the dorkiest dork of a waiter. I ignored that familiar little nudge I had to mention that 'we were celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary and could you please give us a nice table' so instead we got seated right across from that annoying entry/exit all the servers use - with each swing of the wide entry door I caught a glimpse of the chaos that exists in the behind the scenes arena of every restaurant. Our waiter - don't get me started, he was present in body, but I think his brain checked out several hours before we got there. Normally I'm not picky about these types of things unless it's a special occasion, this was a special occasion! Well, I blame myself. I really should have planned better.
The three little chatter boxes stayed the night at Grandpa and Grandma's, then they went to their church in the morning. And this time I made sure every one's tummy was feeling normal...no more sleepovers that include lots and lots and lots, (it's worth mentioning one more time) LOTS of vomit. Thankfully no one puked. And we got one of the best anniversary presents anyone could give us. One child in Sacrament meeting instead of four! It was heaven - if you'll pardon the pun, absolutely heaven to only wrestle one, semi-mobile baby, who's easily distracted by her toys right now INSTEAD of four noisy, rambunctious and often down right irreverent little monsters. Yep I said it, monsters - I love 'em BUT they embarrass me sometimes.
And we would have made it to church on time except for all the snow! We actually thought they might cancel it again (see previous post to understand why) and then we saw the plow - once you see the plow come through the neighborhood there are no more excuses, get dressed!
Through it all I've learned something about myself...maybe it's just the stage of life I'm in currently, or maybe it's just the way I am (either reason is fine with me) I'm not really a romantic person, but I do appreciate relaxation. To me, relaxation is romantic. Peace and quiet is what I desire, a night without fighting or messes or endless childhood chatter is what I crave. If Mike wants to rub my feet while I put down a good book and call it a romantic get-a-way I'll take it. I will take it.
You may have noticed there isn't a current picture of us...ya that's coming later. I'm afraid after this type of post you'll understand it takes us longer to try and look that young again. Gray hair, crow's feet, and a forced smile...I blame the kids.
I'm kidding. Well, mostly.
*When I was pregnant with Aaron we went to Logan for our get-a-way and on my brother-in-law's recommendation we decided to eat dinner at the Blue Bird. Neither one of us had ever been there so we thought it would be kind of fun, and it was...I love the food, I love the rolls, I love the little candy shop, BUT they stuck us next to the stupid door again - this one was now a blocked door - blocked by our table being put there, I'm sure on the kitchen side of the door there was a note that read, (uh, uh, uh...remember don't go thru this door, there's a couple sitting directly on the other side trying very hard to have a romantic dinner...) See, this is why planning is so important Gail!
Ya, I was in charge of that one too.
