Romantic Getaway | Dallas

The stars aligned one week and I had four days off so I decided the Mr. and I needed a vacation. We both work really hard and rarely seem to see each other for longer than a few minutes to hand off our children to one another. 

That needed to change.

And fortunately for us we had some flight vouchers we needed to use and decided a trip to Dallas was exactly what we needed.

And it was the most amazing trip.

Because we had flight vouches and were booking very last minute (within a week) we were told we had to actually go to the airport and buy our tickets in person. So we bought our tickets with only a paper trail and when we showed up to the airport at the crack of dawn for our 7-something am flight, we were told our flight had been delayed by a couple of hours. Apparently there are advantages to having an electronic record, like getting flight status updates! Oh well.

We got donuts instead of being sad about it.

As soon as we hopped off our plane and got our rental car we drove straight to our favorite sushi restaurant.  We have been missing this sushi ever since we moved away, and it did not disappoint. We probably could have hopped right back on a plane and gone home and been perfectly happy.
It's that delicious.

We then drove to downtown Dallas to check into our hotel.

This also knocked our socks off. It was stunning with glass windows and a glass elevator so you could see the world as you went up the elevator.

Our room was 20 something stories up and the view was breathtaking. I could not stop looking out the window at the skyline.

After getting settled we grabbed a quick nap and then it was time for dinner with some of our dear friends from Dallas. 

We decided to walk the mile to our dinner reservations and along the way spotted the Texas Louvre.

The fried ice cream was delicious and the company was even better.

After dinner we spotted this random eyeball.
I have no idea what was going on there!

And our walk home was just as fun as the walk there.

The next morning we slept in, took it easy, caught up on blog posts (as I'm sure you noticed from the rapid fire posts a little while ago!) And then walked another mile to a movie theater and saw the new X Men movie. It's nice to see a new movie in a theater once in a while. That is been very few and far between since we had the boys so this was such a treat!

After our movie we went back to our hotel and got ready for our fancy dinner up in the Reunion Tower.

We sat up on this observation deck that gently turned to give you a 360 degree view of the city. It was extremely wet and rainy that day but we didn't mind a bit. It was so romantic up there even with the clouds.

Jesse ordered a steak

And I ordered quail.
The food was amazing.

We even splurged and ordered dessert that was to die for too.

This is all I wanted for an Anniversary celebration, so we decided to count it as such.  

This man and I got some much needed reconnecting time on this trip and it was so good for us. Life gets so busy when we are both trying to work, keep up with our kids, maintain a semi presentable house, Jesse traveling, and everything else that life throws at us and this gave us a chance to take a breath and get away from it all. 

We were a little sad to check out of paradise, but excited to get back to our cute kiddos.

 As we worked our way to the airport we stopped by a western store and learned that my man looks darn good in a cowboy hat.

We also enjoyed another movie, this time we saw The Jungle Book.

And our trip wouldn't have been complete without one more round of our favorite sushi.

And then we lived the life of luxury and flew home first class (thanks to extra money on our flight vouchers that we wouldn't have used up otherwise.)

Jesse was very impressed that we got blankets, lots of drinks, our own TV with our own remote, and dinner was even included! It was a charmed life for those 2 1/2 hours home!

And a shout out to our good family members who took our children and loved them for a few days while we were gone. It was a trip we will never forget and we had the time of our life! Thanks again!!

Life as a Mother

It's hard.

It's hard to have kids who don't sleep through the night even if they are three.

It's hard to remember to fix food at least three times a day. (I mean come on, I just made three meals yesterday? Isn't that enough)

It's hard to keep a house even slightly presentable let alone clean.

It's hard to have enough energy to keep up.

It's hard to work as a mother full time and then have a full time job on top of that.

But it is so good.

It's so good to have my heart bursting with love for my children.

It's so good to be  needed by little ones.

It's so good to remember that playing is more important than cleaning.

It's so good to have a house filled with the laughter of little children.

It's good to pick up all those little toys every night because it reminds me how much fun they have every day.

And it is so good to have my phone filled with pictures of my children.

Life is so good, despite those hard days.

{I}                           {B}

{B}               {I} 

{I} 

{I}

{I}           {B} 

{I}                {B} 

{B}                        {I} 

{B} 

{B} 

{I}            {B} 

{I} 

And sometimes it's just flat out unpredictable. 

Like when you think you're performing a pengectomy for this poor sick dinosaur 

Only to discover you just assisted in the birth of triplets. 

My Boys.

Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky to have all these cute sweet boys in my life. 

I definitely feel like I hit the jackpot. 

They are my whole world. 

{B}                      {I}

{Apparently I only snapped a few individual shots of {I} so I guess {B} missed his chance!}

And their daddy. 

He is such a great man and I'm lucky to have his arms around me at the end of a day.

We keep each other sane and laughing through this crazy journey.

Plus look how darn cute he is with my other favorite people. 

{I}

{B}            {I} 

This is such a good life. 

Girls Weekend

Since I only have about three people who read our blog anymore, you might recall a few years ago I took a girls weekend with two of my high school friends and we went down to Vegas to meet halfway and had a blast. (You can catch up on that post here.)

Well flash forward a few years, a few moves, a few haircuts, and a few babies later and we are at it again! This time in good ol' Salt Lake City. 

We thankfully have three amazing husbands to take our kiddos while we enjoy some girl time.

And this time we may not have been quite as crazy or taken nearly as many pictures, but we sure had such a wonderful time talking, eating, shopping, and still staying up late and being just a little crazy. 

These face masks made us look like we were about 90 years old. 

I hope we do the same thing when we are 90.

Since Ashley is pregnant, we had to make it our duty to fulfill a craving and get cookies at the amazing Ruby Snap. Now I'm pretty sure we will all crave Ruby Snap in the future. Those cookies were delicious.

It was a quick weekend but I had so much fun and am grateful for these wonderful girls in my life and that we all live so much closer now! (We used to be spread from California to Texas, but now we are all somehow miraculously back in Utah!)

Now if we could just manage to make this a yearly thing instead of a once every four years thing...