Valentines Day in Bryce Canyon

A month ago I entered yet another giveaway, this one by Maverick Adventure Getaways, not expecting to win. Imagine my surprise when I won an overnight stay at a hotel, dinner and tickets to a concert! The giveaway didn't specify where the overnight stay was, just that it was over Valentine's weekend, so I was a little surprised to discover it was four hours away! I had never been to Bryce Canyon, but I had seen the beautiful pictures, so it was a happy surprise.

After dropping off our girls, who practically threw them themselves out of the car to spend the night at Grandpa and Grandma's, we headed down to Ruby's Inn at Bryce Canyon. We were so excited to be there and start exploring and doing that we didn't even take a picture of the Inn, which was beautiful. It's a HUGE place with a log cabin feel, it's own grocery store, post office, restaurant and beautiful swimming pool, among other things. We found this picture, which shows early visitors to Bryce Canyon, while waiting to get seated in the restaurant, and it made me grateful I had air conditioning and a comfy ride on our way down there.

It isn't often that I see a sign translated into multiple languages, without Spanish being one of them. Judging by the conversations ebbing and flowing around us in the restaurant and other areas of the hotel, people from all over the world were staying there that weekend.

After our awesome, and free, meal at the hotel restaurant, we headed over to the concert across the street. The tickets were for a Ty Herndon concert. It was in a much smaller building than I had expected, a place where they do dinner theater, which made it more personal and super fun!

Ty Herndon gave a great performance, and I would go to another of his concerts in a heartbeat!

The next morning, after an invigorating swim in the pool, we headed to Bryce Canyon. 

Bryce Canyon was inspiring. Such a huge expanse of red rocks in odd, beautiful shapes stretching across the horizon!

 We had a wonderful, super romantic weekend! Who knew that without kids around I could sleep through the night?

It was great to spend time with the love of my life and just get time to focus on us.  I have an awesome hubby who was ready to drop everything with 2 days notice to spend the weekend with me! We love exploring new places and having adventures together! Thanks Maverick Adventure Getaways for the weekend!!

Five Years and Still Going Strong

This past week was our fifth wedding anniversary! Yay! It almost seems surreal that so much time has passed. I didn't really believe people when they said it would fly by, but it has. It reminds me of the mission; there were many days that would drag on endlessly, but then before I knew it we  reached the end of a month, or the end of a transfer (6 weeks). 

For this anniversary I was a bit stumped on what to get Scott to show him how much I love and appreciate him. Then I happened across a post on pinterest about doing anniversary gifts by the hour and I knew that was perfect. There were a handful of small things that Scott had mentioned needing/wanting that would fit this idea. 

The basic idea is that they get to open something every hour for 12 hours. I timed Scott's gifts to be opened at 5 minutes after the hour since it was our 5th anniversary. Corny, I know!

For about 2 weeks I picked up little things as I came across them and managed to get most of his gifts during normal shopping trips with my kiddos. 

The gifts were mostly small things and I tried to come up with clever/funny sayings to go with them. 

A few examples: 

• The first gift was a small package of grill wipes from Home Depot and a package of his favorite sour candies. 
• The fourth gift was a can of Tire Slime to fix a flat tire (see tag below). 
• The big gift was Chromecast paired with some swedish fish. (see tag below)

We had a lot of fun opening Scott's presents and he even laughed at my corny jokes and word plays. If you would like more specifics of the small gifts I used for this idea, email me!

Scott was in charge of everything about this anniversary and he surprised me by taking me to spend the night at Little America in SLC where we spent the first night of our honeymoon five years ago. It was a wonderful surprise and I was overwhelmed with the memories that flooded me as we walked into the hotel lobby. After checking in we headed down to the lobby for some late night desserts and saw a couple checking in who had obviously just come from their wedding reception and it made me smile. 

I have the most amazing husband in the whole world. He is so perfect for me. No one understands me in quite the same way, encourages and loves me or picks me up when I fall quite like he does. I love you Scott and I'm still over the moon excited that you want to spend forever with me!

We had a wonderful, leisurely weekend while the girls played at their grandparents house. They got to spend time with Scott's parents and his aunt who happened to be in town and I got to sleep in, use the bathroom ALL BY MYSELF(who knew that was possible anymore?), and eat my food without little fingers in my plate! 

Happy anniversary Scott!

I included a few flashback pictures of our wedding day! As you can tell, I had a hard time deciding which ones to include....

Social Media Stumbles

Almost a week ago I was reading through a milso's blog and one of the comments really surprised me. I've thought a lot about it and felt like I needed to get my opinion out there. I don't remember exactly what the blog post was about but I do think it had something to do with things that irritate people about facebook or social media or something along those lines, since I do remember something about people that take multiple selfies a day and post them. And hey, I can't manage to take a single flattering selfie so I gave up on that years ago so that one isn't an issue for me at all!

The thing that got under my skin was a comment that said how irritated someone was when people posted on their facebook walls about how awesome their husband is. They went on to say that it's been proven that the people that do this have failing marriages (not an exact quote, since I can't remember which blog this was on, but it's pretty close to the main idea). I am just going to go ahead and call BS on this! While I don't always appreciate super gushy, sappy posts on a daily basis from people I don't think that such a blanket statement about failing marriages connected to social media updates applies or is at all accurate.

Shouldn't people feel like it's okay to mention how awesome their husband (or wife) is on social media without feeling like their marriage is under scrutiny? MANY people post on social media about every little thing in their life. Sometimes it's a little TMI for me, but that's okay, I just try to laugh and remember that not everyone thinks like I do. Since people post about every aspect of their life, why would you expect them to leave out what should be the most important person in their life? My friends post about how proud they are of their kids and how much they love them, why shouldn't they feel comfortable posting about how much they love their spouse and how wonderful they are? Does this commentator really think that all these people have terrible marriages?

I have made a few posts on facebook in the past about how much I love my husband or how proud I am of him for some accomplishment he has achieved, or how I was reminded of just how awesome the guy I married is. Sometimes these happen on a normal day but these also happen after my hubby has done something super spectacular or gone out of his way to do something special for me or they happen on our anniversary when I remember just why this guy captured my heart.

I DON'T post such things in an effort to convince myself or anyone else that my marriage is better than it is. Nor do I know anyone who would do such a bizarre thing. The friends I have who post about their marriage or their spouse have strong marriages and want to share how happy they are (And I don't have many facebook friends that I don't know in person at least fairly well).  

I love my husband and am super proud of him. He is a talented guy and can achieve anything he sets his mind too. He's always learning new skills and talents just because he finds new things that he is interested in. He is the funniest guy I know and can make me laugh in ways no one else can and he just "gets me". He is a super hard worker and makes many sacrifices so that he can finish school and still provide for our family. He will never really know how much I admire and love him. 

My husband is a wonderful, inspiring guy, I love him, and I will shout it to the world and be proud of him! And if you think my marriage is on the rocks because I am proud of my husband and not afraid to share it then perhaps you should come over to my house and have dinner with my crazy fun little family and get a little change of perspective. So come on over, we don't bite! :)

What do you guys think? Is this way of thinking common and I've just been in the dark about it? Do you post on social media about your spouse?