RUNAWAY!!!

This past weekend, Eric and I celebrated our 11th anniversary!!! Can you believe that? Yup, 11 years of wedded bliss has been ours to share, and if you count the years we were dating, we've been together for 13 years! Crazy how time flies.

This year, Eric was super sneaky and planned our anniversary. He wouldn't tell me anything! However, we have kids and they found out enough that I knew we'd be going away, somewhere.

So the day of our anniversary arrives and Eric has told me to pack for 3 days and that he wanted to leave by about 11:00 a.m. So, I actually have everyone ready and packed and we head out around 11.

Our first stop was just around the corner where we dropped Shaylyn and Nathaniel off with our good friends, the Wards. We debated a bit about who to leave with the Wards as all of our kids are good friends, but in the end it was decided Shaylyn would be better closer to home so she could help out with the dogs as well.

Our next stop was at Eric's parents house to drop Tanis & Lex off. Eric's dad treated us to a Costco pizza (I love their pizza for whatever reason). And after visiting for a bit we head out around 1.

The stop following this was to Jiffy Lube - yes, Jiffy Lube - Eric wanted to get an oil change before we headed out.

Now, all this time I was thinking that we were going to be going on a plane somewhere, so when Eric headed South on the freeway instead of North...Wow, you should've seen my face. I was totally confused. THEN, we take a PROVO exit. Seriously, we wound up in Provo for our first night.

Now, to be fair - Eric's Dad had planned to take us to the BYU/UTAH game before Eric realized it was the weekend of our anniversary and Eric had his plans still - so, Eric's dad wanted to treat us to a game. Thus, the reason we were in Provo. And hey, his Dad got us a killer suite - so I didn't complain too loudly.

We took some time to browse the mall and then we went to see "New Moon". After the movie we headed straight to the basketball game. BYU was playing Weber State and it was a fun game to watch. I was amazed looking at BYU's cheerleaders and Weber States Cheerleaders...Weber State looks like trash...Sorry, they do.

We call it a night after the game so that we can be on the road by about 9:00 in the morning.

We actually do make it on the road by about 9:00 the next morning and I still have no idea where we are going...There were a bunch of signs for Price, Utah and CEU, but I had no idea why we'd be heading there.

Eventually there are signs for Moab and I figure out that that is where we are heading. I had actually told Eric a few weeks prior that I had never been to Moab or to Arches National Park. So, he decided that's where we would go and that is where he surprised me at.

We got to Moab around noon and decided the first thing we would do is have lunch. We decided on Pizza Hut (During this pregnancy I've been craving pizza tons) and spent an hour having lunch. For whatever reason, our waitress at Pizza Hut kept forgetting about us or something.

Anyway, after lunch we decided we would head to Arches for the next few hours since we couldn't check into the hotel until 3, anyway.

We spent the next few hours in the park and enjoying the scenery. We took it mostly easy and enjoyed everything we saw...but winter hours and darkness started to fall soon, so we decided we'd better call it a day around 4:30 and head to the hotel.

We spent about an hour resting in the hotel and then we headed for dinner. I thought I was more hungry than I was however and only ate about half of my dinner. We then stopped at a T-Shirt shop to get each of the kids a shirt. We had so much fun and lots of laughs doing so.

After the t-shirt shop we relaxed the rest of the night.

We woke up early the next morning as well to try to get in the rest of Arches that we didn't see the day before. Our first stop was the hike to Delicate Arch. Ummm, yeah...I'm glad we did that first thing. I had a hard time making it up to the Arch and Eric had a hard time coming down. (He has horrible knees).

However, each of us made it and we are so glad we did. I have a terrible fear of heights, however, so I didn't get right up close to the arch. I was surprised I made it up there at all considering how high up it really is.


After the hike we drove around to see what else we could see from the car and then decided to head home and pick up our kids.

I had such a great time and I'm glad that Eric planned something so nice for us and that he kept it a surprise. Thanks BABE!

All of the pics will be on the website when I do the update. As for now I just posted a few "faves."