Honey/baby/anniversarymoon

So, out of all the things I need to blog about, this morning I picked Chuck's and my recent getaway for two reasons, 

one:

he's currently on a plane coming home from a business trip and I thought it would be a fun way to welcome him back and distract him from the unfolded laundry 

and two: 

a family I know (but not well) in my mom's ward was subject to the horrific sudden loss this week of its young husband and father, and all week - when I haven't felt nauseous and heartbroken and anxious and just so sad - I've felt an overwhelming gratitude for eternal marriage. I have a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and I know that families will be reunited after this life is over - but in the meantime, having to face that mortal separation decades before it's expected seems too unfair. As with any such loss that I've witnessed, it's made me more determined to live worthily of being with Chuck forever and ever and not take our time together here with our family for granted and take the best care of our marriage that I can. 

And now that we're all crying, here's a light-hearted recap of our trip last month...

2014 is a prettttty milestone year for Chuck and me: June 12th will mark our TENTH wedding anniversary! Ohhh snap, look at those young and innocent faces:

 So obviously I've spent a lot of time daydreaming about an amazing trip this summer to mark the occasion - Hawaii, Europe, a cruise, New York City, etc. BUT then I remembered a few crucial facts: 

a) Chuck and I are homebodies. There is nary a 'traveling bone' in either of our lame, lazy bodies. We are embarrassingly content with looking at all of y'all's exotic vacation pictures while we sit on our couch in Idaho.

b) Regardless of the fact that ten years of marriage seems to warrant a big vacation, it turns out the universe doesn't actually owe you such a thing - you actually have to fund the thing yourselves. NGTH (not going to happen....)

and c) as these recent pictures remind us:

 it turns out we'll have a four-week old baby to celebrate with on our tenth anniversary! Do you know what comes with a four-week old baby? A survival-mode, hormonal Jana who leaks and cries and is still recovering from a c-section and still looks six months pregnant and feels about as romantic/sexy as ... I don't know, a walrus? 

(Anyone else super jealous of Chuck right now??)

SO I decided to plan some sort of early anniversary trip / babymoon!

But then Will read this book:

 about Mama and Papa Bear going on a 'second honeymoon' and then learned that Chuck and I indeed never taken a first honeymoon and decided that should be remedied (and also that we should go canoeing on our trip...)

Hence the official title for our trip: 

our honey/baby/anniversarymoon! 

Really rolls off the tongue, right?

 So we picked a couple days in March that coincided with Grandma Pam's spring break (aka babysitting availability, that woman is a saint) and we hit the open road! Our destination? Boise, Idaho! (heyy, we live in Nampa, so technically that's out of town...)

Because I'm amazing and Costco gift card deals are amazing and the 'suite of the month' deal is amazing, we were able to stay at the Anniversary Inn in Boise for two nights:

 I know, right? Cue whatever innuendo sound effect is your favorite; mine is bow chicka bow wow!

 And we had such a fabulous 42 hours together with noooo kids and noooooo schedule and noooooo stress and [sadly] noooo sudden photogenic-ness, haha:

 Here's the round-up of our self-portraits from all the fun. We actually broke down and asked someone to take our picture at one point on our walk and they held the camera and counted down and all that and then after we walked away we realized they hadn't actually taken a picture. Love it.

 Our adventures included dinner at the same little Chinese restaurant where we had our first date eons ago, a Savers run where I found this amazingly perfect dress for the baby:

 It was five dollars, but so worth it. Cutest thing ever right? Even cuter in person. She'll probably wear it every day next summer (it's 18mos), complete with all stains and marks it will accrue by then. So excited.

We went to an afternoon movie:

 We really liked it. I cried, so that's a mark of a good date, right?

Favorite thing was our long walk along the greenbelt and into Julia Davis Park:

 the top two pictures are of a giraffe and a zebra. I decided that the next time my kids ask to go to the zoo, I'll save myself a gazillion dollars and instead just walk them along the outside path and tell them it's an "I Spy" zoo adventure! Brilliant, right?

 We ended up at the Anne Frank Memorial which is beautiful and peaceful and has lots of places for pregnant ladies to sit and rest and ponder incredible wisdom and perspective and inspiring words:

 And in an effort not to get tooo deep or mature, we mixed it up that night by eating at a restaurant/arcade combo that was loud and slightly overwhelming and not really someplace we would normally go - which made it the perfect one-time experience for our getaway!

 Ohhhh, did I beat Chuck at Mario Kart? That's what the picture sure seems to suggest, despite Chuck/Yoshi the Pirate's best efforts :). GOOO Peach, go! (Also, how great do I look as a blonde? It's okay, you don't have to answer that right away. Just ponder....)

 And for the most hilarious set of pictures you've seen today, here is Jana playing skee-ball like it's bowling....

 and getting in the FIFTY spot! Which apparently I mark by pulling a weird sort of "Mary Catherine Gallagher" type move... that's not awkward.

 Our getaway concluded with a late-morning temple date:

  which was a perfect way to celebrate our almost-ten-year-old marriage and our expanding family and our gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the blessings he continues to pour down upon us. 

Happy honey/baby/anniversarymoon sweetheart! 

Don't worry, I have biiiiig plans for our 20th anniversary - has anyone been to Mountain Home in June? Is it nice? Or maybe Burley? Twin Falls?? 

I guess we've got time to think about it...