Romantic Weekend Getaway

Dusty and I bought a Groupon a few weeks ago for the Manti House Inn to use for our upcoming anniversary in April.  Last Friday, Dusty called them to book our getaway and found out that the temple would be closed for the majority of April so we decided to go this weekend.  I managed to get work off because Lily took my shift so we packed up on Saturday morning and left for Manti.

We started off the road trip by creating a play list of all of our favorite songs, Dusty added 56 songs and I added 20... he listens to a lot more music than I do. I picked up Coke Zero, Beef Jerky and Hot Tamales from Costco for our road trip snacks and we headed out around noon on Saturday.  We sang to our play list the whole drive there, and snacked until our stomachs hurt. I was so excited when we got to Manti that I started trying to take pictures of the temple from our moving car.  As we were driving away from visiting the temple during the October Conference weekend before our wedding Dusty promised me that the next time I saw the temple it would be when we were driving there to get married.  For those of you who know exactly how that week went and how I'm a little bitter about it, you'll know that didn't happen. It was so nice for his promise to actually happen as we drove into Manti this weekend, I just loved it!

We found our hotel, a cute little bed and breakfast that faced the temple and checked in.  Our room looked like a garden pulled straight out of a fairy tale.  It was super cute and I wish I could just live there! After we settled into our room, we decided to head over to the temple and do some work in there.  We did everything there is to do in the temple... it took 3 and a half hours, but we loved it.  They allowed us to sit in the room where we were married and Dusty and I were able to talk to each other for a little bit.  We've changed so much in the last two years and the last few months have been particularly hard on us but we're still a family and love each other more than ever.  It felt wonderful to be back in the temple where it all began for us and we hope to go back again.

After going to the temple, we went to the little Mexican restaurant that Dusty's family ate at the night before our wedding. It was so cheap that we left the waitress a 50% tip because we were shocked that food could be that cheap! We then headed back to the hotel for a night of bubble baths, snuggling and other things ;P

Sunday morning we slept in and then had breakfast at the hotel.  The owner made us muffins, eggs and bacon.  He was really nice about my Celiac Disease and made sure that I had enough to eat. After eating we packed up and headed home.  On our way home we stopped by my Grandparents and ate lunch with them.  It was nice to spend a couple of hours with them because we'll be moving soon and I am going to miss them like crazy! We then headed home and ended our super fantastic weekend. Every time Dusty and I go on a weekend getaway I say it was the best vacation ever but this weekend was seriously the BEST BEST BEST weekend ever.  Dusty even turned to me and said it was the best weekend he's had and that it was super romantic.  This weekend was great for me, it is a new beginning for us and I hope that we can continue to move forward, forgetting about how hard the last few months have been.

We ate at hotdog on a stick on our way down

My car picture of the temple

Getting ready to go to the temple

Dusty forgot his church shows so he had to wear his Puma's

Dusty loves him some mexican food

Our typical vacation bathrobe picture

The next few are from our hotel room

We visited the temple before we left on Sunday morning

Our best attempt to fit us and the temple in one picture

The Manti temple

We're moving :)

The last week has been full of amazing things!  On Monday (February 20th) Dusty took me shopping and we bought a new ottoman, to replace our old coffee table.  The coffee table was a gift from my friend Cindy when we got married. She was about to have twins and didn't have room for it anymore so we inherited it.  When me moved to Salt Lake last June it got banged up and it hasn't been the same since.  I begged Dusty to get me a new rug to go with our ottoman so that night while I was at work Dusty found us one on Ikea.com. He told me that I needed to wait until we had more money before we bought it but on Tuesday morning he caved in and took me to Ikea to get it.  It was our first time going to Ikea and it was fabulous.  We loved looking at all of the different house ideas and love our new rug.  After we got home Dusty got an email from Washington University asking him to pick a degree.  We thought it was spam until Dusty opened it and it was an email asking him to choose between their Masters of Hospital Administration program and their PhD in Economics program. He applied to these programs about a month ago and we didn't expect to hear back from them this quickly and for sure not in an email that looked like spam but we're super excited. The next day we got his acceptance letters in the mail, so we know for sure that he got in :)  After thinking it over for a while, we decided to go with the PhD in Economics program.  Its in Pullman, Washington, which is in the middle of nowhere but we are super excited to go. As a celebration gift, I gave Dusty a hooded towel haha.  He is always complaining that he doesn't have one and how cool one would be so when we got some in at work I got him one.  We've been searching for an apartment like crazy ever since we make our decision and Dusty was able to find one a few days ago.  Its brand new, so we will be the first people to live there and its huge! Its 925 square feet (which is bigger than both of the apartments we've lived in so far) and costs the same as our apartment here in Salt Lake and cheaper than our Provo apartment.  We'll be moving up there in the beginning of May and we couldn't be more excited to start a new adventure together.

Dusty eating at the Ikea restaurant

Dusty's hooded towel

Dusty keeps coming home from work with food all over his scrubs.... poor husband :(

We got these fortunes when we were out to dinner on Saturday 

and thought they were fitting given the circumstances 

Dusty dyed my hair and the majority of my face on Saturday

One of my coworkers posted this picture on the fb and we loved it!

This is the floorplan for our new apartment, we've never seen it but we like the floor plan :)