Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Getaway

He would deny it but I really believe one of Zach's love languages is "gift giving". But I guess it could also be "physical touch" or definitely "words of affirmation." (If you never read 'The Five Love Languages' for your pre-marital counseling than you sorely missed out.)

He's basically everything but "acts of service" which is definitely mine, or at least how I show it. The point I'm working my way to is that he gets a lot of excitement out of surprising me (and the kids) and he did a mighty fine job this last time.

Every 18 shifts for firefighting you get a "kelley day" which means a paid day off on a normal shift day. Well if you normally work 1 day and then have 2 days off, essentially with a kelley day you have 5 days off in a row. Now that I've lived through our first one I can say (EMPHATICALLY) they are magical and everything that is amazing.

Zach took Reagan to school a couple of weeks ago and came back home to tell me to pack my bags, his parents would be over in about 15 minutes to watch the boys and we were going to be headed on a little "parents-only" getaway. I had a million questions. One being what to pack in which he kept saying just something comfortable like tights. Using my mom-to-toddler deciphering brain I figured out he meant leggings/workout pants. I also had a few things I needed to do the rest of that week and to my (further) surprise he had already taken care of them! The longest I had been away from Shepherd was when I gave birth to Levi and I think I've only been away from Levi one night, I wasn't nervous to leave the boys but it definitely was a new experience.

We drove down to southern Illinois where his parents have a cabin but took a detour to Springfield to go through Frank Lloyd Wright's Dana Thomas house (which was closed despite what their website said- bummer) and the Lincoln Presidential Library. Zach held his tongue as I thoroughly read each and every plaque in the museum, which I did because I knew we would be taking the kids back at some point and they would have no patience with such learning. I can't recommend the Lincoln museum enough, I will say it was much more somber than we expected (which makes sense since his life had so much tragedy in it) and we were left with a sort of melancholy feeling. I still loved it and can't wait to take Reagan.

Over the course of the next few days we went on a 3 hour zip lining excursion (suspended bridges and hiking trails included) and golfed at Kokopeli. All of this outdoors-y activity to counteract the mucho mucho eating we did.

What is a post without pictures? Here they be.

Our afternoon of education with just us and 200 eighth grade students.


 The next morning we joined our group of 2 guides and 6 strangers to fly through the tops of trees in what felt like diapers. Beforehand my biggest fear was safety but the guides are so thorough and the harnesses have multiple safeties that I quickly lost most of my hesitations. The views were gorgeous, I'm so glad we did it.



 In reference to my earlier fears, Zach said he felt the greatest hazard was where they clipped his water bottle to his harness... eek.

 man we are HIGH-larious.

The very last zip they put a radar gun on you and you can se how fast you are going. I went 40 and Zach went 43 mph.

HUGE HUGE HUGE thank you to Grandma Darlene who stayed at our house, got Reagan to and from school and watched the boys most of the time. She is awesome in so many ways and this is just a small example of all she does and is. 

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