Huh??

Darren and I celebrated our 18th  anniversary on September 23, 2011.

I am so grateful to be married to my best friend.

It was Darren's turn to plan our anniversary this year.

He had me seriously all freaked out that we were doing something CRAZY.  It doesn't help that one year I took him sky diving and he keeps saying he will get his revenge someday. He kept hinting it would be an adventure.  He told me to pack jeans and sensible shoes. He later clarified the sensible shoes request to say to pack what HE would consider sensible shoes.  Obviously he knows me enough to know that if told to pack sensible shoes I'd pack my fantastic ruby red slip on flats.  I figure anything without a heel is sensible right???

He told the kids what he was planning and for the few days before we left every time the kids would look at me they would start giggling then look guilty and pat me and say, "You'll probably be okay mom". 

Gee... thanks.

I will be the first to admit I have control issues.  I don't like heights. Or going fast.  I am NOT athletic.  Never have been. I have terrible eye/hand coordination.  You get the idea.  My mind was going into over-drive trying to figure out what had been planned.  I was worried that whatever it was, I wouldn't be able to do it. I was worried I would REFUSE to do it.  I was worried Darren would be disappointed he married a wimp (although to his credit when I shared this fear with him he said, "You think I didn't know you were a wimp BEFORE I married you????). HA!

After the football game we drove to SLC and stayed at a Hyatt at about 90th south. It had the BEST mattress.  We watched Saturday morning pre-game shows for a while. I went shopping at TaiPan.  We had Breakfast.  We headed out. At one point I was so nervous my lips were seriously tingling.

Our first stop was the movie theatre at Jordan Commons.  I could handle this. We watched "Contagion" on IMAX. I have a dark side. I love dystopian movies.  And I am a germ freak. Awesome combination for me.  There was not another soul in the theatre so I can brag that my honey rented out the entire IMAX theatre for our anniversary.

After that we headed up to Snowbird. I had never been there before.  We checked into the lodge and then hiked down to whatever awaited me.  This is the first thing I saw:

Yes. Ambulances.  And a firetruck.  Not a good sign.

But obviously because I'm typing this you know I survived. And really, my family must think I'm an even bigger wimp than I really am because everything we did was way fun and not even a big deal. There was no self-talking necessary :). We rode the zip-line and the alpine slide. Darren teased me how slow I went down the slide but was proud of me for doing it. I had to laugh as I didn't even consider it scary. I mean it has a BRAKE for heaven's sake. I did refuse to ride the mechanical bull though. We rode the chair lift up the mountain, hiked through the tunnel to the other side, and then hiked the switchbacks up to the Gondola to ride back down. There was still snow up there. The leaves were amazing. The sky was so blue.  We saw a moose. We had so much fun.

After our fun on the mountain we drove back down to Sandy and had FABULOUS dinner at Mt Fiji's.  We had sushi and gyoza's and tempura and miso soup and fabulous teriyaki chicken.  We will definitely eat there again.

We drove down to visit Darren's parents for a while and watched the end of the USU game against Colorado.

We stayed the night at Snowbird, had an awesome Sunday breakfast, and arrived late to David and Gaile's mission farewell (sorry... but hey it was our anniversary! Did you really expect anything different???)

Anyway, so that is the story of how I thought I may die but ended up being okay after all.

THANKS DARREN!! 
Happy Anniversary!!

LOVE YOU :)