celebratory stay-cation

After the ultrasound last Thursday, John "surprised" me with a little celebratory outing. I say "surprised" because I knew it was happening beforehand - someone forgot to tell me to forget about the budget for a week or so :) So, I saw the charges for a hotel and tickets to something, but had no idea where we were going or what we were doing. Anyway, we dropped the girls off at my parents' (who were so gracious to watch them even though they were dead tired from a whirlwind trip to Houston the day before and my mom was still feeling sick from a sinus infection). They do so much for us and I can't believe they're always still willing to do more when we are presumptuous enough to ask. I always hope that I'll be like that when I have grandchildren.

We drove up to Salt Lake, stopped at Cheesecake Factory for lunch - oh yum! - walked around the mall a little, then continued up to the hotel where we promptly fell asleep. no joke. I apparently was exhausted! I guess taking a nap is considered okay as part of a vacation when the kids are elsewhere... right? We finally peeled our sorry lumps off the bed and walked over to the Gateway. Browsing at the Gateway on our budget is like browsing at the Galleria in Houston:

lots of gawking at price tags and feeling way out of your league. So we hobbled (my feet really hurt for some reason) over to the Planetarium and played around for a bit :)

I think John did a much better job of floating in space than I did. I look like I'm jumping up to try to eat my hair - like a dog chasing

its tail - fruitless effort. But I got pretty sweet ups for a pregnant woman, eh?

Aaanyway. We browsed the Gateway a little more, even found a few Christmas gift ideas (that we'll get somewhere else for a much better price), then headed back to the Planetarium for an IMAX movie that John had to practically drag me to. I really didn't want to see it. He really did. And we both really liked it :) It was the Under the Sea in 3D - and I think whoever designed their 3D glasses must have thought they were being pretty funny. John said he felt like a little kid watching it because he kept thinking, "wow! I didn't even know that existed! wow! cool! check that out! awesome!" I thought the same thing, just in not so many words. mostly just "wow!" If you want to see an IMAX, go see that one.

The next surprise was later in the evening at Capitol Theater. We saw Ballet West's performance "The Dream." I loved it! John probably might say he liked it. I asked him if he was going to tell the office the next day about the ballet he attended :) Honestly, I will probably always love most anything to do with ballet. I don't know much about it, but I know I love it.

After crashing in bed at much to late an hour for people used to going to bed around 10/10:30 pm, we were awakened by what we thought was a bomb right outside our window and people cheering and the power going out in the hotel. Though we forgot to ask in the morning what it was, we are just happy that it wasn't a bomb and that we are alive :) Seriously, it rattled the windows. I hope I never get woken up like that again!

(we breakfasted at the Nauvoo Cafe in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building - it was amazing. The prices aren't bad, either! yum.)