My Reasons

My Reasons

This Is Where It All Begins

This Is Where It All Begins

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

just us

A couple weeks ago, Ben and I were able to "get out of Dodge" for a few days...just us!  It has been 5 years since we have done a trip together, and it was long overdue.

We started our trip off with hiking to the summit of Timpanogos. 

This was no small hike!  We started up around 10:00am, and got back to the car around 10:0pm.

It was a hard hike, but it was so nice to just be out in the mountains, with Ben, and no worries.  We were able to talk, enjoy the scenery, and do something that we both love.  We saw a cute momma mountain goat with her little baby.  The baby just peeked down over the rocks at Ben, and he got a picture of it.

I wore the wrong shoes, and absolutely trashed my heels.  I had blisters about an hour in to the hike, and by the time we were down, I had scraped layer after layer of skin off of my heels.  They were in bad shape!

When we got to the summit, somehow my phone worked, and we were able to facetime the kids back home with grandma.  It was really neat!  Mary said she was waving a huge stick in the air, and asked if we could see her.  :)

On our way back down, it became really dark, and with about 20 minutes left to the bottom, Ben told me to stop.  There was a HUGE bull moose right smack in the middle of the trail.  Right in our way.

We had absolutely nowhere to go, and the moose wasn't too happy to see us there.  It was snorting and pawing the ground with it's front hoof.

Ben and I were completely freaked out.  Seriously, if we weren't so depleted at the time, we probably would have peed our pants.

We backed up the trail, and waited and waited and waited for the dang moose to leave.  He didn't leave.  In fact, he was probably enjoying himself, while scaring the crap out of us.

We needed to get back to the car, and there was no way to get around the moose, so we decided to pray.  After the prayer, we felt like we should walk past the moose.  We were truly scared to death, and it took all of the faith we had, but we tried to walk past the moose. 

The moose just stood his ground, and we ended up backing down the trail again.

We waited another 10 minutes, and heard the moose move into the brush right next to the trail.  By this point, we had also heard his buddy somewhere in the brush near us as well.  Double trouble.

We decided to just walk past the moose again, and this time we did it.  It was terrifying!

We laughed at ourselves, and we laughed out of relief, but at least we made it back to the car!

We grabbed some food, and crashed in a hotel that night in SLC, and got about 5 hours of sleep before we had to get up to catch our flight.

We arrived in Riviera Maya, Mexico later that afternoon.  We stayed at the Hard Rock Resort, and it was extremely nice!!!  Ben earned the trip with Cintas, so it was an all inclusive paid for trip.  Gotta love Presidents club!

We spent that evening eating dinner at a restaurant that overlooked the ocean and the pools, and hanging out with some of Ben's team for a while.

We learned that back home, Molly was having a hard time, and Mary had been in the ER because she stabbed herself with an Epi Pen.  Yikes!!!  Poor grandma.  She was hanging in there though, and the kids really were doing ok.  I prayed hard that night that things would go more smoothly for everyone back home.  From the sound of it the next morning, things were going much better, and Uncle Devin and Nichole even came for a visit!









The next day, Ben and I headed out to a place called Xplor, to have some fun!  This place was really cool!  We got to zipline, raft through the caves, drive a jeep thingy around, and just play and have fun together.  The place also had an amazing buffet, and I ate 6 fajitas!!  The food was so so so good!  We had a great time, and we literally both fell asleep the second we laid down in a hammock there for a little rest.  ha!







We made it back to our hotel with just enough time to shower and change and get ready for the President's club recognition dinner.  This dinner is always fun, because we get to dress up, eat yummy food, and Ben gets recognized for all of his hard work.  I always feel so proud of him and so grateful for his job, and for all of his hard work during this dinner.  It really shows how blessed we are in this way, and I am always humbled.
Ben and his team mate Brian.  The lighting was horrible..sorry.

Prom picture...haha

Ben's team members that made it to P.club this year


One of the dudes announcing stuff




We stayed up late that night hanging out with Ben's team, and enjoying the night in Mexico.
 
The next morning, we basically just had to get up and go.
 
We traveled all day, and finally made it back home around 2:00am. 
 
It was so great to see all of my sweet babies soundly sleeping, and to give them all kisses.
 
My mom was a super star, and sacrificed a lot in order to help my kids feel happy and comfortable.  She kept Molly up on her medicine, and gave her much needed loves and cuddles, took Sam to scouts, got Mary to her sleepover for tumbling, rented movies, made treats, did laundry, cleaned the house, and kept up with the boys. They had a wonderful time with her, and made a lot of memories.  I am so lucky to have her, and so are my children.
 
It was wonderful to have this trip with Ben, and to be able to celebrate his hard work he does for us every day.  Sometimes it is so refreshing to be just us.

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