Time Out

Remember how we had a cousin visiting during spring break? Well, in exchange for having him here with us for a few days, Mom offered to watch the kids while Tim and I went somewhere. By ourselves. Overnight. Amazing, huh? We've done this before, but it has usually been associated with a conference or a high school activity (thus involving other people's children instead of our own). After a little discussion we decided to keep it close to home. So here's what we did:

Tim had his last final of the semester on Wednesday night. I drove him up, dropped him off for his presentation, and hung out on campus for a couple of hours. I felt old. I did spend a lot of time being amused by the half mile long line (no joke- it may have been longer than that) that was snaking from the testing center past the McKay building and on to the Widtsoe building two hours before close on the last day of finals. This isn't a good picture, but you can kinda see the line in the background. It was not moving quickly... maybe 10 feet every 20 minutes.

When Tim was finally done, we went to dinner (Los Hermanos!) and then to the Hines Mansion for the night. This is the scene of the last time we went to a bed and breakfast... in 1997. It was the first time we had left Rebekah overnight (thanks, Amy and Eric!). It is a great place- we are planning to go back again. After all, we've only tried 2 of the rooms so far.

Thursday morning, we spent some time walking around our old neighborhood of 12 years ago. Back for breakfast at the Mansion, which was way too good to be good for me. We met a cute young couple there who were celebrating their 2nd anniversary. Watch for them later....

We then drove up to Salt Lake and started trying to do all the things on my list that we'd never done before. Thus...

The Gilgal Gardens


Salt Lake Library

Pioneer Memorial Museum
(very cool- definitely worth a visit, and it's free)


State Capitol


Self-Portrait inside the Capitol


Cool Arches


That's Governor Huntsman. No really- that dark, shadowy figure in there is the Guv. I promise.


We also went swimming in the hotel pool, took a walking tour of downtown (including walking the wrong way through all of the Jazz fans and dodging ticket scalpers at Energy Solutions Arena), ate Ben and Jerry's, and walked through the Gateway. We were exhausted by the end of the day. Then we slept.

Friday, we went to a session at the Salt Lake Temple. What an beautiful building with an amazing spirit. The cute couple who we had eaten breakfast with on Thursday was in our session. Coincidence? I don't know- but it was kinda weird.


After our session (it took awhile, since they start sessions on the hour and we got there just after 9) we had lunch at the Lion House Pantry. YUM. Big fluffy rolls with orange butter. German Chocolate Pie. There was other stuff, but it was less important.

We saw the Joseph Smith movie (very good), and then we were ready to return to our kiddos. It is really fun to be alone as a couple, but after awhile I just start thinking, "the kids would love this" and it's time to jump back into the madness.