Pioneer Day

I know it was a week ago, but I wanted to share my glorious Pioneer Day holiday with everyone. Unfortunately there are practically NO pictures of it, but it was fantastic.

It started on the 23rd of July. Chris and I both got off work around 3:00 p.m. and headed up to Salt Lake. (Back up info: Chris has been going to a class, going to work, and then doing an externship at a pharmacy. So we both leave around 9 a.m., and he doesn't get home until 9:30 p.m. almost every day. Plus he works 8 hours on Saturdays. So we basically don't ever spend more than a couple of hours together at a time. Unless you count sleeping. And I do not.)

So we went up to Salt Lake and checked into the Anniversary Inn. You read that right, we stayed at the Anniversary Inn. We had a free night there for going to this HEINOUS timeshare presentation that we got duped into at the mall (do not spin their wheel and win free candy as you wait for a movie to start, you'll get sucked into the Worldmark by Wyndham world and it is a bad place to be).

And yes, the Anniversary Inn was cheesy and funny and we made fun of it but still had a good time. We stayed in the Italian Gondola Suite, and there was a very handsome gondolier named Cristoforo.

After we dropped our bags at the hotel, we went to the Salt Lake Temple. I was SO excited about this because I'd never been there before. And it exceeded all of my expectations, it is so beautiful and big and I loved it! The temple is always amazing, and they are all wonderful, but it was the day before Pioneer Day, and I just got a little choked up thinking about everything that went into building the Salt Lake Temple. I love Pioneer Day, I love Church History, and so of course I loved that we got to go there! Unfortunately I have no pictures of us there, but here is a beautiful picture of the temple and you can imagine me and Chris standing in front looking cute.

We were starving after the temple, so we headed off to dinner. Our dinner story was amazing . Before we even departed for Salt Lake, I knew that I wanted to have a lovely Italian meal at Buca di Beppo, and that Chris wanted to go to Charlie Chow's Mongolian Barbecue. But since we'd be up there on Wednesday and Thursday, we kept fighting not about if we'd both get to go where we wanted, but when. One for dinner on Wednesday, one for lunch on Thursday.

On the drive to Salt Lake, Chris said something about "the place where they have the homeless animals." And I said, "the Humane Society? The one with the video screen billboard by the freeway?" But Chris insisted, "No, it's not called the Humane Society, it's called something else." And I said, "no, I will bet you where we go to dinner tonight that it is called Humane Society of Utah." Sure enough, when we got there, it is called the Humane Society of Utah.

So for dinner we went to Buca di Beppo.

What we were not counting on is that our Asian friends at Charlie Chow's Dragon Grill would want to honor the Pioneers by closing their restaurant. Oops. I promised Chris we'd make a return trip, though.

On Pioneer Day we woke up and cute Chris said, "Do you want to go shopping?" Do I? What a ridiculous question. But he didn't want to, and that's why he's a cutie. So we went to Gateway and perused for a bit, departed to Charlie Chow's and discovered it was closed, and then we had an amazing idea: Let's go to Seven Peaks.

The last time I went to Seven Peaks I was, I believe, thirteen years old. Chris has never been. So as you can imagine, this was a very exciting plan to us both. We went home, got ready, and went. Again, no pictures, I didn't want the camera to get wet or stolen (I don't know why, because then I could get a new camera that takes clear pictures instead of fuzzy ones), but I did set up the timer on our porch to take a picture of us before we left. So that's what this is. I don't look as cute as I actually was, in my sun hat and new glasses, which really is a shame. Plus I had new swimming shorts on underneath my boy shorts, and they are black with white polka dots and adorable. Plus the camera adds 10 pounds.

The point is, we went to Seven Peaks and had an INCREDIBLE time! The Boomerang is fabulous, I screamed the whole time. At the end of Jagged Edge we both fell off our double tube and I landed on top of Chris in the little pool. I kept telling him as we sat in the wave pool, "No, they get WAY bigger, it's like the ocean," but turns out it's actually kind of lame, I just hadn't been there in a long time. The lazy river always and still is one of my favorite parts. Only I'd never been there as the big adult sitting in a tube getting in the way of all the kids, so that was fun too. Basically, Seven Peaks plus us equalled amazing that day.

After Seven Peaks, we went to P.F. Chang's (to fill the Asian food need, you know), which never ceases to make me want to cry with joy because of the deliciousness of the food. I got one of their desserts in a cup, and it was delicious as well, and with that, our vacation drew to a close.

All in all, though poorly documented, it was SO much fun to have a mini-vacay and to spend more than 24 hours straight with cutie Chris! I have decided we are doing more things like this, because it was so incredible. And maybe my life is just not very exciting, because looking back on it, we didn't do anything THAT amazing, but it was the funnest couple days of July for me. So that's my mini-vacation, and I loved it.