Someone Else's Life

Jaaromy and I had a chance to take an overnight trip for our anniversary.  We had originally tried to go in May or June, closer to our anniversary date but everyone who could watch the kids overnight were all busy.  We even had a reservation, but we had to cancel it.  Apparently, though, we had rescheduled and forgotten until one day we got an email from the hotel telling us about our upcoming reservation.  Luckily, Jaaromy's mom was free and was able to spend the night with the boys so we could go.  So, hurray for last minute trips!

Not that it was a huge trip.  All I wanted was to stay downtown at the Grand America hotel and so that's what we did.  We checked in around five and then took the train over to the Gateway for dinner.  We weren't sure where we wanted to go so we took a chance and tried a restaurant called La Jolla Groves.  Turns out it was amazingly good!  Seriously, all night I was thinking about when we could come back and eat there again.  While we were waiting for our food to come we realized that if we saw a movie, which we were planning on doing, the trains would have stopped running by the time we came out.  We decided that we would walk back to the hotel even though it would be late.  We mapped out a route on our phones that we thought would be best.  Problem solved!

Before the movie, I had heard about a clothing store called Bettie Page from a friend of mine on Facebook.  I really wanted to take a look so we walked over there to see what they had.  Turns out it was exactly my kind of store.  They had so many cute skirts, dresses, and even some tops that were just my style.  We had some time so Jaaromy humored me and let me try on several outfits.  They were so fun and cute!  He ended up insisting that I buy several of them.  Three skirts, one blouse, and one full length dress.  They were not cheap either.  I decided to let him buy them for me, as my anniversary/birthday/Christmas present.  Also, because I've lost weight, I needed new clothes anyway.  It was really hard to say yes though, and even though I was excited for my cute new clothes, it was definitely the most I had ever spent on clothes before.  We left the store and the whole experience just felt a little surreal.

After that we went to the movie.  It has been a really lackluster summer for movies this year.  I wanted to see Man of Steel.  I had heard that it wasn't great, but it was pretty good and was probably our best option.  Jaaromy didn't want to be disappointed and so he wanted to see Pacific Rim.  That movie, we knew very well would probably be dumb but at least it would be exciting.  And it was.  The characters weren't very interesting, but giant robots battling giant alien monsters was definitely action-packed.  Sitting there in the theater watching a movie that was dumb and under normal circumstances we would never pay money to see just added to my sense of surrealness for the whole evening.  But the night wasn't over yet.

After the movie we started our long walk to back to the hotel.  Google maps said it would take about 20 minutes and it was close to midnight.  Before long we came across a bike rental station.  We kind of joked about riding bikes back to the hotel and then realized that it might not be a bad idea.  We went back to the station to see if there was another station close to the hotel.  There was!  They even had baskets on the front for my shopping bags.  So, for the ultimate surreal moment of the evening, we rode rented bikes through downtown Salt Lake City at midnight on a Friday back to our hotel.

 I'm glad I thought to take a picture.  It was so crazy!  I haven't ridden a bike in years, maybe decades.  It was fun, although it stressed me out a little because I don't know what the rules of the road are for bikes.  Luckily, the streets weren't terribly crowded.  It was midnight after all!

The rest of the night was fairly typical for an anniversary trip.  We ordered a dessert brought to our room while we watched Phineas and Ferb on Jaaromy iPad.  There's a tv of course, but nothing good to watch ever.  That's the only problem with hotels.  Oh well.  The dessert was tasty and we were exhausted.

The next morning we had a big breakfast brought to our room.  That, for me, is the hallmark of a great anniversary overnighter.  Breakfast IN our hotel room.  It was expensive but it was awesome and so tasty.

After we checked out of the hotel we walked around the new City Creek shopping center.  I hadn't really been before.  It was so pretty.

Then we picked up the kids.  It was a great adventure.  The most exciting and unexpected anniversary trip we've ever had.  Until next year.