Anniversary Overnighter.

I didn't do so great at keeping things in chronological order after all. I was just so darn excited to post about our Spring Break adventures that I neglected to first post about our anniversary.

Yes, we celebrated, if only briefly.

My initial hopes were to have a good three-day two-night getaway (with a phone ban on Bill), but since Spring Break was the following week, and Bill would already be missing TWO Sundays (oh my), we kept it to a 1.5 day/1 night event. But it was most excellent, and our time together was definitely magnified. Tender mercy.

Bill had given me roses on the 12th, and wrote a romantic Facebook post. It was a full day at the salon for me, so a client actually told me about the post.
Thanks, babe!

The totally AWESOME thing about Bill's roses is that they were a gift to him from an insurance company partner the day before. Boxed up and presented beautifully, he opted to give them to me. 

You may think that takes away from the sentiment and thoughtfulness of his gift.

NOPE.  It made me love them more. I viewed it as a perfectly timed tender mercy.
Beautiful roses for our anniversary... for free.


Friday afternoon we started our overnighter by trying out a new(er) sushi joint right here in town.

Then we took a leisurely drive to Colorado Springs and checked into our hotel in the heart of downtown.

We had gotten a pretty killer deal on it, and we weren't quite sure what we were going to get.
It was awesome.
Kind of makes up for the not-so-lovely place we spent our last anniversary at.

It was a really amazing old hotel that had been freshly renovated, but still had some fun original details - like this old safe (used as the housekeeping closet now). We had a view of the city from our window, and our room had one of the best bathrooms I've experienced in a hotel - they usually gross me out.

Then we checked out an antique mall Bill had run through back in December when we were madly hunting down a typewriter for Mar. I know he loves me... sacrificing our getaway time to peruse antiques (and some not-really-antiques) because he knows I love to do it.

He's definitely my knight in shining armor...

That night we stuffed ourselves with beef and bison here,

using a gift card Bill had received at Christmastime, which we had held in reserve for such a time as this. Perfect.

After catching some March Madness on TV (my tiny time sacrifice for Bill), and sleeping in on Saturday,

we decided to grab lunch at a place just around the block, The Ritz Grill.

 It was on the very street the St. Patrick's Day parade was on, so we passed the heavily green-clad (can't really tell from the pictures, but there was seriously a lot o' green going on) and good humored crowd on our way.

This was also perfectly timed, because Salt Lake City's 1988 St. Patrick's Day parade was held on our wedding day.

(Those brightly colored people behind us? Parade people. Not sure why there's not much green there either.)

From my seat in the restaurant I could see bits and pieces of the parade.

We elected not to stay for the whole parade, but still somehow got stuck in parade traffic by the time we got our car from the valet and headed out. Since we were already stuck (and driving in circles), we decided to stop at another antique store we found in our stuckness.

I found a new old hand-beater (love those).
Bill found some new specs.

Harry Potter-ish, we concurred.

We headed back to our neck of the woods to catch a movie at Southlands (with those new reclining seats). Honestly, I can't remember what we saw, so I will ask Bill and {insert here}. Obviously not the most memorable part of our getaway ;-)

We were home in enough time for Bill to prepare for his Sunday meetings.

A much needed break.
Perfect timing.
Tender mercies.
It couldn't have been better.
I love you, Bill!