find joy in the journey

while the boys are away . . .

 . . . the girls will play

Scott & the boys went on a ski trip with the scouts this weekend.  Which meant it was the perfect opportunity for Anna and I to spend some girl time together!

It started with an afternoon marathon of Fixer Upper.  Oh my goodness. We love this show!  Nearly every woman I know has talked about this show but I have been waaayyyyy out of the loop.  We only operate on Roku which means no HGTV.  BUT, I discovered that season 1 of Fixer of Upper is on Netflix so . . . boom! We're part of the cool crowd now.

There was a trip to the grocery store to pick out pints of ice cream - one for each of us.  And a movie from Redox.

We came home to watch another episode of Fixer Upper and then popped in Pan (Anna's choice) and ate all. of. the. ice. cream.

One of Anna's favorite things to do when Scott is out of town is sleep in my bed.  It's so sweet and I love getting that extra lovey/snuggle time.

We woke up and watched another episode of Fixer Upper in bed.  I seriously need Jojo to come do my house.

After getting ready for the day we were off to SuperCuts to get Anna a trim, a stop for smoothies, and then pedicures.  Anna cracks me up with the massage chair.  She cracks herself up for that matter!  

Finally, shoe shopping.  We found a cute pair of sandals for Anna at Target.  Then we went to DSW because I wanted to find some lace-up oxfords.  No luck.  BUT.  They were having a clearance sale!  I love the DSW clearance area.  So many treasures to be found.  Which means I have to carefully scan every single rack of shoes because I don't want to miss a hidden gem.  Which also means I might have also spent an hour and a half trying on shoes.  Anna's shoe shopping stamina is about 20 minutes so . . . . it was a little bit rough for her.  I'm trying to help her understand how much fun this can be, but she hasn't caught the vision quite yet.

To reward her patience she got one of these super cute & on trend floppy hats (only $9 on clearance). And I got one too.  We look pretty cute being matchers.

When we got home I also let her pick out a Julia dress from my LuLaRoe inventory.  She has been dying to have one for so long!  They come in XXS which is perfect for her right now.  Her first step into women's clothing!  She wore it to church today along with a Sarah duster cardigan.  So stylish and only 10 years old.

The boys returned from their ski trip happy, stinky, and loaded up on junk food.  Glad they were able to have a fun time together on the slopes.  I don't ski, and Anna isn't too keen about it anymore so this trip was perfect.

Church was good today.  I wore my cobalt blue Amelia dress with a cute pink cardigan.  When we got home I put on my pink valentine's day leggings under the dress and took a nap!  It was perfection.

See my cute pink toes?

And one more picture share . . . Anna and I have started riding bikes to school a couple days a week.  Actually, she rides her bike and I run in the mornings.  And then in the afternoon I hop on my cruiser to go pick her up. The weather has been beautiful so it makes for a delightful afternoon bike ride!  

I know you can be jealous of our weather in January/February but I don't feel bad at all because pretty soon we'll be baking in the heat!  I'll take the beautiful & comfortable temps whenever I can get it!

 

the fantasy suite

Scott and I just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary this weekend. We typically do a little something to celebrate but every couple of years Scott decides that he is really going to do something.

On Monday he took my request . . . a nice dinner, maybe on the Strip . . . and took it from there.  He did a great job of planning and I just wanted to share some of my favorite parts!

The "surprise" //  Life was busy BUSY this week so I hardly had time to think about our Friday night date other than a fortuitous shopping trip that allowed me to score an ah-mazing dress on clearance which needed to be my anniversary date night dress.  

One morning we were chatting about the upcoming events of the week and I mentioned that I had a LuLaRoe party Saturday morning. Scott paused and got that "hmm" look on his face.  The jig was up.  He had planned an overnight date for us and while it could still work out, it wouldn't be a surprise anymore because we would have to make different plans for Saturday morning.  Darn.  But, yay!  An overnight date!  

The hotel //  One of the bonuses of living so close to the strip is that we have a wealth of fantastic hotel getaway options just 15 minutes away.  Scott picked me up at 5pm on Friday - I was ready to go with an overnight bag.  We arrived at the hotel, parked in the parking garage and began walking in.  I quickly noticed that he didn't have a bag with him.  Ahhhh, this man has something up his sleeve!

Sure enough, we walk into our suite at the Palms and enter the "lounge" portion with a big semi-circle couch and huge windows with view of the strip. On the coffee table I see an ice bucket filled drinks and strawberries.  (The scene totally reminded me of something from The Bachelor.  We are fans.)  THEN I noticed the rose petals which led to the bedroom and finally the bed where a box of Ethel M chocolates were waiting.  

We're totally on the Bachelor!  Except he's only dating one girl.  And we're not dating, we're actually married.  But still dating.

The dress // This is aside from the actual date but I have to tell you about my dress.   So I was supposed to be ready to go at 5pm on Friday - dressed & decked out.  And of course Friday was one of those crazy days where I was running non-stop all day.  Truly.  The day  included getting a bunch of LuLaRoe orders ready for shipment, preparing for my Saturday morning pop-up & packing my 900 piece inventory into the van.  AND an afternoon trip to the fabric store because that ah-mazing dress I found on clearance needed some alterations to make it Mormon ready.

I raced in from the fabric store at 3pm and started sewing like madwoman.  The leg slit was too high, the cutouts on my chest were too wide/open, and the back was too low so I needed to add fabric. Spandex, stretchy fabric no less.  Let me just tell you that when I tried that dress on at 4pm I was pretty darn impressed with my skills and what I was able to whip out in an hour!  With the addition of some fashion tape I was good to go for a hot date on the town.

The dinner // We ate at a French restaurant on the 56th floor - Alize.  Scott mentioned our anniversary when making the reservation so we got one of the nice tables next to the window..  The food was great.  There was the chef's tasting samples -- don't ask me to remember anything that was placed in front of us but it was all good.  As was the meal - a cheese & dried meats platter (cheese!), potato gnocchi, porcini mushroom consumme, filet mignon, veal wellington, and an amazing creme brûlée.

The date card //  When we sat down at the table I noticed a little platter holding a gold key.  Hmm, that's curious.  The host handed me a notecard and after a quick glance I exclaimed to Scott, "We got a date card from Chris Harrison!!  Should you choose to forgo your individual suites, you may use this key to stay as a couple in the fantasy suite."

No, that's not what it said . . but close!  

At the end of our meal they brought us a small wooden chest.  With a turn of the key we found inside a little chocolate dessert with a Happy Anniversary message written in chocolate.

The morning // How about this sunrise view?

We wished that we could have stayed longer and lounged until checkout at 11am, but we had responsibilities to get back to.   We were out of there at 8am and stopped at a neighborhood restaurant for breakfast on the way home.

While it was short & sweet it was a wonderful getaway.  Conversation was great as we were able to discuss things about home, family, & work without the distractions of family & work.  I loved digging deeper into Scott's experiences at his new job (which he is loving) and making plans for things we need to be more diligent about at home.  There's something about being a neutral location, where the stress is minimal, and defenses are down that allow for great conversation, connection, and understanding.

I sure love spending time with this man.

Tonight, on a random whim he pulled out his big box mementos from his mission to Australia and laid it all out for the kids to see.  He told stories and shared insights.  He told the kids that sometimes you might hear people say years later that their mission was the best two years of their lives.  And that always makes him sad because, really? . . . you haven't had anything else wonderful happen to you since your mission?  He told the kids that yes, when he was 21 those years had been the best two years of his life.  But since meeting their mom (me!) life was even better and has continued to get better every year since.

Seriously, am I not the luckiest?

And he goes on painting dates with me!  This was Saturday night's masterpiece.  

Although, I'm not so sure we were in the same class . . . .