My 16th Wedding Anniversary

So Travis and I have made our marriage last for 16 years so far! Our anniversary is on the same day each year, June 21.  Each year we take turns planning a little stay vacation for each other and we try to do something a little special.  This year it was my turn to plan our anniversary festivities.  In preparation for our celebratory time together I had an appointment for a wax.  The only thing I've experienced that's more painful than having your lower legs waxed is childbirth, and childbirth lasts longer.  I imagine that waxing must be easier for people with tight, firm skin, but I'm the opposite of that.  With every fast, pain excruciating pull of the wax strip, my hair along with a couple of layers of skin went with it.  The adorable young women I saw for this unnecessary pain was as sweet as cotton candy and to try to keep my mind off the pain so told me stories of how men are babies when they come in to get their ears, chest, arm and leg hair done.  Some scream profanities, other tear up and whimper.  So hearing these stories which were supposed to make me laugh just made me think of the pain.  The pain only lasted as long as the ripping, but almost immediately my legs has thousands of small red and blue dots, to which the wax lady said, "Oh, these little bruises will only last for a couple of hours." and she smiled.  I think she was smiling because she really knew the bruises wouldn't go away for two or three days.  So, here I am, hair free and covered in thousands of pin sized bruises, looking pretty spiffy for my romantic weekend.  I spent the rest of the day buying things for our time away, like bubble bath, wine, treats, water, etc.
I decided to keep our agenda a secret from Travis because I like to give surprises, even though Travis can usually guess them.  Travis woke up with a cold and a fever, but insisted we carry on with our plans.  So we drugged Travis up on dayquil and took off.  


Our first activity I was able to keep secret and he was so surprised to find out we were going paragliding.  This is something that's been on my bucket list my entire life thus far, but I've always been too afraid to pursue it.  I got a groupon coupon to go, the price was right, so I bought two tickets.  Early in the morning we went to the paragliding park in Draper, UT.  I found out that it's one of the largest paragliding parks in the nation, so that's pretty cool, right?  We found the company we bought our groupons through.  They weren't sure if the flight conditions were completely safe, so we stuck around for about 45 minutes until they said it was good to fly.  While waiting, we were watching the area where we live and saw a fire in the foothills in our city has started on fire and it was growing.  

This isn't us, but here's a visual for you.

Our paragliding coupons let us fly tandem with an instructor, which means we sit in a little basket seat in front of the instructor while he does the flying.  Travis and I were harnessed in to our instructors, told to lean forward and then magically each of us took off, Travis before myself.  I didn't really notice Travis at all because I was so focused on myself at the moment.  My instructor's name is Bill.  He's a skinny man in his 40's (I'm guessing).  We were scooped up by the air and within seconds we were flying.  I almost felt weightless and the wind carried us along the hillside.  Bill said, "Welcome to my office Jenny."  I didn't really know what to say.  So there was a paused before saying, "Glad to be in your office Bill."  But what I really wanted to say, your office makes my office look like a crap hole (but that would have been weird I'm thinking).  Flying was exactly like I imagined it to be in my dreams, we flew in a smooth flow, rocking slightly back and forth and I felt bliss.  Within a couple of minutes Bill said, "OK Jenny, we're going to land in a minute.  When I say so, arch your back which will pull you out of your seat, then start running as fast as you can in the air until we hit the ground."  I gulped, "OK, but you need to know that I'm a true uncoordinated klutz so there's no guarantee of how this is going to go."  "Just do it, you'll be fine, NOW START RUNNING!"  I arch my back to pull my body out of the seat, and start running in the air.  The second my feet hit the ground, I fell on my body and arms into the brush and dirt.  I start laughing, almost uncontrollably, I'm really not sure why, other than the entire experience was fun and a bit scary.  Bill pulled me up and the para glider looked a bit tangled.  I could tell immediately he seemed a bit annoyed.  "Sorry Bill, I did the best I could."  He looked up at me, one eyebrow lifted and said, "Well I guess it's OK, but now I need to untangle my para glider.  I tried to help him but he asked me not to help because it needs to be packed in a very specific way.  I probably would have been a bit annoyed if I was Bill because that's pretty important equipment and it would be horrible if something tore or got tangled.  So I stood there and watched him lay everything out and carefully pack it into his bag.  Travis and his instructor were waiting for us in a truck and we jumped in and drove back up to the top of the park.  Travis's instructor, Billy, told him that "He doesn't say this to anyone, but Travis is a natural and should definitely consider taking lessons."  Puke.  He's perfect at everything, I swear he is.  I guess that's why he's the ying to my yang.


We hopped out of the truck and Bill helped me out of my harness, which I didn't realize he was doing, I thought he just wanted a hug, so I hugged him and he smiled and said, "Thanks for the hug, but I need my harness and helmet back."  That was embarrassing.  Travis tipped them both and we were on our way.  Travis and I were both thrilled and had a great time.

What does this lady have to do with my anniversary?  Well, nothing, but I thought her story is pretty neat.  In March of 2012, this young Utahan of 101 years made the Guiness Book of World Records for being the oldest women to fly tanden.  Read about her story here.

We drove back to the house to shower and change for the rest of our day.  Driving back, we notice the fire on the foothills is getting worse and slowly moving towards our neck of the sage brushed hills.  But still a good 2 miles or more away.  We get home and get ready.  Dominic planned on being home all day until Travis's Mom would pick him up after she got off work and then we planned on spending the night there.  We got ready, said good-bye to Dom and left.  We went up to Salt Lake and to the Arts Festival, a huge annual event with films, music, interactive art, art vendors, food, etc.  We saw a couple of music acts, a story teller that's been on NPR and goes to the Timpanogos Story Telling Festival each year.  While we were listening to his stories and songs Dominic kept calling Travis.  Apparently the fire had got worse and was getting closer to our area.  He said there were voluntary evacuations in our subdivision.  Here I am at an Arts Festival while my son's trapped at home.  At the same time Dominic was calling us, Travis's sister, Whitney, called us to say she was leaving work early and could pick up Dominic.  Relief!  I'm trying to listen and be respectful of the storyteller at the same time panic is rising that my son is alone and trapped.  But I don't want to be impolite and leave the story teller who was telling his stories to an almost empty audience.  Realistically, we're a quarter mile from the foothills and the fire was still a mile away.  


Dom called Travis and I at least four times during the storytelling.  He asked for things like, "Is there anything you want me to take with me in case our house starts on fire?"  "Should I take the dogs or leave them?"  Travis told him to leave the dogs, that he was 200% positive nothing was going to happen to our house.  I always try to prepare for the worst possible scenario, so lucky all my our important documents and pictures are in one location and easy to take.  Everything else is just stuff.  Well mostly anyway, I'm a bit more sentimental than that.  Whitney got to the house and picked up Dominic.  Travis tried to get me to relax, but I was anxious the entire rest of the day.  After the storytelling, we looked at the art, and went to a short film festival of 8 short films we got to vote on.  We had a great time, leisurely walking around while I'm trying to mentally calm myself down from not having a panic attack, which I've never experienced but was certain it was going to happen at anytime.   

From our door, looking into the room.  The stairs take to the tub, the lighthouse is our bed,
where an aquarium of fish, in the ceiling of the lighthouse were supposed to be waiting to meet me.

After the Arts Festival we checked into our room.  I got us a room at The Anniversary Inn. I've never stayed there, but always heard great things.  I decided on The Cape Cod room for 2 reasons; The bed was round and in a "light house" and the main reason, the ceiling of the light house had a salt water fish tank.  The front desk welcomed us with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.  Our room had a bottle of semi-chilled sparkling apple cider sitting on melted ice in a bucket and two pieces of cheesecake in the fridge.  The bed looked awesome, the first thing I did was drop my bag and ran to the bed, not for the passionate romantic stuff people do on beds, but to look at the aquarium that I was so excited to see.  Instead, I was greeted with a glass ceiling decorated with blue glass stones in front of a back drop of particle board.  I was so pissed, and I think I gave Travis the wrong idea at the same time by jumping onto the bed.  


The tub area was awesome, a jet tub that easily accommodates at least two people, surrounded by rock walls.  When you turn on the shower head, a flowing waterfall from the ceiling drops into the middle of the tub.  I'm guessing it was made this way to separate you and your partner who are on opposite sides of the tub, because the tub is too narrow to sit side by side.  Anyway, it was still pretty cool.  

View from the tub area to the rest of the room.
Note, the lighthouse is my bed.

We got ready for the evening watching the news while we were in the room.  We then went to a Middle Eastern restaurant called Mazza.  It was dee-lish and met our food palate needs.  We washed down our kebabs, yogurt and hummus with a couple of Stellas and then went to the movies.  I wanted to see Hysteria, a comedy about how the first vibrator was created in the name of medical science...who wouldn't want to watch that really?  But Travis suggested we see another movie, Safety Not Guaranteed, to which I agreed seeing as I planned the entire weekend anyway, he should have some choices.  I was not disappointed in the least, it was a hilarious movie about some magazine folks who try to interview a guy who placed an ad in a newspaper for a companion for time travel.  I loved everything about the movie, there was a great depth in each character, it was funny and it had a great story line.  After the movie we headed back to the room to drink some wine, enjoy our cheese cake and watch the news about the fire.  Poor Travis was still feeling sick all day, he was a trooper and stayed in good spirits the entire night.  If the roles were reversed I probably would have been whining and miserable to be around.  Boy am I glad he's so mostly sweet.


The following morning I had plans to go to the Farmer's Market for snacks and then to head up Big Cottonwood Canyon for some bird watching.  Travis is starting to become a bird watcher and he loves to talk about the birds he sees.  For Dad's day we got him some binoculars to support his new birding hobby.  Our plans didn't come into fruition because Trav's brother, Nate, needed some plumbing help.  It was really cool to be able to spend a little bit of time with Nate and Jared as it happens so rarely that it's just us four together.  We picked up Dominic and went home, I was anxious to see how close the fire had got to our home, it didn't get anywhere close.  I sighed a breath of relief and Travis reaffirmed that there was nothing to be worried about the fire was probably a half mile away from the house, and it's not like our house borders the grassland, we're about a quarter mile of houses between us and the foothills.  Yeah, yeah Travis but what if?

My neighbor took this picture of the fire behind my house on the night we were gone.  Kind of looks like Mordor, huh?