13 going on 14

Can you believe we've been married for 13 whole years?

Me neither.

They have been amazing, and beautiful, and adventure filled, and sometimes a little bit frustrating. But always have they been ours.

For our anniversary, we decided to go on a little overnight getaway, so we pawned off the kids (to some super amazing friends, by the way) and headed out of town.

You know how when you're with someone all the time and you have nothing to talk about other than the stuff you already do together and so your conversations are sorta like, "Remember when we took the garbage to the dump together? Yeah. That was fun."

But then you keep talking and your discussions turn into something like, "How do you feel about the recession and its toll on the average bear?"

We had such a great time.

We went to the scenic Rogue River and took a jet boat excursion where they take you on a ride down river and drop you off at a remote location for a gourmet dinner. After dinner they take you back up river and drop you off. All in about 4 hours. We had a blast.  And the food? Well, let's just say it was to die for. Literally. A guy at our table suffered a coronary when the waitress didn't bring the beer refill fast enough.

Kidding.

He just got really jovial. And loud. But funny.

The above photo is part of a mural that was painted all across the underside of the restaurant that was near the waiting area where we lined up to board the jetboat. Apparently, I felt this shot was the only one worth taking? I thought I took more pics of it. Oops! But do you see why I was so interested in this particular part of the mural? Look closely.
Luuuuuuke...

We must be officially part of the old and married crowd because after people watching and assessing the situation, we made our seat choice of the near back of the boat where the old people and children would most likely be sitting.  Not up front where the much younger and much more party-ing crowd settled.

Two blue herons standing on a thing. Pretty.

This is the entrance to Hellgate Canyon. "Hellgate" in Viking terms, at least, means the entrance to something huge, or grand. It was so pretty and yes, grand. The way was narrow, but deep-ish. Not deep like the Congo River (700 and something feet) but deep like 47 feet.

This is looking back at the canyon after passing through.

This is the restaurant where we ate. Have I already told you how delicious it was? We were served the yummiest salad. Then came all you can eat ribs, BBQ chicken, probably the best scalloped potatoes I've ever had the privilege of wrapping my lips around, homemade rolls and biscuits, followed by marionberry cobbler. Holy Moly. It was totally worth gorging yourself over.

This is what told us where to sit. Yes. We are the Burritos.

Hi.

The view from our hotel room.  Nice, eh?
So, here's the thing about staying in a hotel. It's nice to get away from your own place for a while, but it's never really truly relaxing, and I'll tell you why.
1) I know some of you, OK most of you, will bug your eyes out of your heads when I tell you this, but Miguel and I sleep in a double bed. Yes. We like to cuddle. And whenever we stay at a hotel or at my parents house, we sleep in a King Size Bed. Capitalized because it's Kingly. Giant. Humongous. Large. And in the night, I kept reaching over to see if Michael was still there or if he had moved on to greener pastures. You guys, I had to roll over 2 and a half times just to find him. I'm not even kidding. He was all over on the side of the bed, sleeping as he sleeps here at home, barely hanging on to the mattress and straight as a line. This happened all night long.
2) I'm not sure what goes on in some hotel rooms at night, but in this hotel on this night, in the room directly above ours, I think they were calf roping. Seriously. The dead would not have been able to sleep through that. But luckily for us, the ruckus stopped at approximately 8 am. So we were able to get a couple of hours' sleep, and woke up at 10:30.
3) Checkout times! They're totally uncool! As mentioned above, we slept in until 10:30 and had to checkout at 11 o'clock. And I may have told you this before, but I do not like to be rushed.
Aside from these three things, we had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed our night alone. hee hee hee.

Ahhhh. My husband. The photographer. Isn't he good? He's available for family photo shoots, in case you're interested.

See this curvy road?

See the speeds we were taking them at? Are you scared for us? Or are you just thinking that our speedometer is broken because you know that Miguel would never knowingly drive like a maniac? If you're thinking the latter...you are correct. But I had you going, didn't I?

And the last picture of our trip.

A turtle.

Michael passed it on the road and as soon as he mentioned it to me, I said, "Turn around and let's go see it!"

So he did.

But when I got out of the truck and approached the little critter, it hissed at me! Cross my heart, it hissed. Well, it could have been a mix between a hiss and a scream of, "DEAR LORD, DO NOT LET THIS CREATURE PICK ME UP AND MOVE ME. I'VE BEEN TRYING TO CROSS THIS ROAD ALL DAY!"

I had to pick it up quick because we were stopped in the middle of the road, so I grabbed it and jumped in the truck and we drove till we could find a safe place to pull over to examine the bugger. It was cute. Then we put her on the other side of the road in the direction she was heading and got back in the truck and made our way back home to the waiting arms of our children.

And that's the end.