Yesterday, Chris and I celebrated twenty years of marriage. No small feat in this day and age. We are still, most happily married and that is not something I take for granted. Especially as we watch so many of our friends NOT being happily married and moving on to divorce. We had been talking for a few months about how we might celebrate this year. Did we want to do a big trip? Maybe a cruise, taking the kids along? But we couldn't really settle on anything. Nothing seemed to gel for our crew. And leaving our crew for a week or so didn't gel either with us, having new drivers and what not. And so...we decided to postpone a big trip somewhere for another 5 years. By then...both boys will be out of the equation, out on their own and we will only have Clara to figure out. I thought that was where we had left the matter. I put in a great idea for a purse I am dying to have that was pretty inexpensive...along with a couple of other gift ideas, and was excited for Wednesday to roll around. I woke up unusually early on Wednesday morning, excited about the new cycling jersey that I had to give Chris and I wanted to make sure I was awake to give him his gift before he headed out the door to go to work. After I gave him his jersey, I expected him, in turn, to hand me my gift. In a box of some varying size. BUT...what he handed me was simply an envelope. I opened it up and there was a letter there for me. With the first sentence reading "I know you are going to be mad at me." Uh oh! This was NOT the way I was expecting to wake up and celebrate twenty years! I proceeded to read on and discovered that there was no box coming. The reason being, that you just can't box up the special gift he had put together! He was SO sweet and planned a quick getaway for us to Las Vegas! We had plane tickets and dinner reservations and tickets to see Cirque de Soleil! And we were leaving in THREE hours!!!! Whew! Good thing I woke up more than an hour earlier than normal!!! I was SO excited! Chris had taken care of every detail. All the kids were covered with pick ups and drop offs and he had even arranged a fun sleepover for Clara with one his coworkers and my friend whom Clara ADORES to pieces! She was so excited! She couldn't WAIT for us to be gone!!! So I quickly packed and dropped kids off at school and we were OFF! I have never taken a trip like this on the fly, at the last second...so it was a double adrenaline rush for me. I tend to spoil it for myself with the planning and overplanning and overthinking and worrying about all of the details. But THIS time...there was nothing to plan! Nothing to worry over. I just had to get in the car and get on the plane and GO!!!!
We arrived in Vegas about 1:15 local time. We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel on the strip. We were staying at the Bellagio and I was SO excited to see how beautiful and huge it was! I was utterly SHOCKED when we walked into our room (get this....we celebrated our 20th anniversary, on the 20th floor, in room 20020!) and took in the view before us! It was GORGEOUS!!!!!! We had a fountain view...and a view of SO much more. It was simply stunning! HERE is the view I walked in to find!
Amazing, right?! I couldn't believe how stunning it was! I took this with my phone right in the huge window of our room! I could have stood there all day long taking it all in. But we headed out to get a little lunch. We walked across the street, towards the Eiffel Tower and had a great sandwich in a little french themed bakery/sandwhich shop. Then we walked around a bit to see some of the sights. We ran into these guys...
I LOVE the minions from Despicable me...so this was just too fun! After walking around forever, we decided to head back up to our room and rest just a few minutes before dinner. We grabbed a bottle of wine and returned to our gorgeous suite. Darkness was quickly on us and THIS was the view we had...
We had reservations at a wonderful, fancy restaurant downstairs and tickets for Cirque de Soleil...but I was so darned facsinated by the gorgeous light and water show going on in the fountain below me that I was GLUED to the window! I could have sat there ALL NIGHT LONG!!!! I LOVED watching it! The entire scene was just surreal. SO pretty and sparkly and ALIVE! But we DID manage to leave to head to dinner. Here's a picture of the two of us right before we headed out!
Hard to believe it's been twenty years! Anyway. As much as I didn't want to leave the room, I am SO happy that I did! Dinner was DELICIOUS and the show....there are simply no words to capture how amazing and truly awesome that show was. All I could say was "Wow" and "wow" and "WOW"!!!! I will never forget it as long as I live. INCREDIBLE!!!!! Just breath taking! We made our way back to the Bellagio afterwards and then sat up in the window until the very last fountain show, just after midnight! I didn't want to miss any of it, as I knew the fountain would not be on again before I had to leave the next morning. It was a LOOOOOOONG but WONDERFUL and exciting day! Then, it was time to get up and hit the road to get back home! Getting TO Vegas seemed to take but a minute. But getting home...seemed to suck up most of the day. We arrived safe and sound, tired but happy. I am SO grateful for this sweet and wonderful man that I am lucky enough to have shared the last twenty years with. It was so special and fun to celebrate with him. I could never have dreamed up such a whirlwind and special evening!
Can't wait to spend the next twenty years with this man! I am blessed beyond my wildest imagination!
