Staycation

This weekend we had a little early Anniversary staycation. Our original plans started with maybe Vegas... but spending hundreds of dollars for a semi-long drive and not too much to do, we decided, hey, we could book a short cruise for about the same price. Which might have been a great plan except apparently you can't go on a cruise once you get to 24 weeks pregnant; Which I am TODAY. And since you need a passport to go anywhere these days, we wouldn't have been able to get it in time.

So, this brought us to look around town and see what we could do for fun close to home. Since yesterday was Good Friday, Justin had a half day and my mom already had work off so it seemed like as good a weekend as any to have a little getaway.

We got a couples massage (with me using the prenatal cut-out table, awesome!!). Then did a little Easter goodie shopping at the dollar store, and found a swimming suit for Carrie's Easter basket at Target. On our drive toward our hotel, we passed the Gilbert Temple (under construction) and decided to stop in to see the visitors' trailer.

The site under construction

A close-up of some of the amazing stone work around the outside

The trailer has all sorts of blueprints, and plans for the temple grounds to look at with very knowledgeable senior missionaries to answer all of our questions. Did anybody else know how huge it is? 85,000 square feet!! We learned all sorts of cool things about it and the plans for the grounds. I can't wait for it to open next year!

Then it was off to check in to our hotel before dinner. Our room had a beautiful view of the pool, that sadly, we didn't even use. We were lounging around for a bit waiting for it to be dinner time and Justin turned on the Diamondbacks game on TV. At some point, I fell asleep, Justin turned off the TV and fell asleep too! We caught a little unplanned half hour nap before dinner! It was wonderful! Oh the simple things in life!

We stuffed ourselves at Texas Roadhouse (Justin was in Prime Rib heaven!) and then we headed to the Hale Theatre to see a play. My little brother works there so we were planning on getting the "family discount" on our tickets. The manager is a friend of our family from high school though and when we got there, he said "Happy Anniversary" and gave us our tickets for free! It was so nice!

The play was called "Harvey" and is about a middle aged guy whose best friend is an imaginary six and a half foot tall white rabbit named Harvey. The point of the play is his sister and niece trying to get him committed to a sanitarium and a mix-up happening that ends up getting the sister committed instead and the man and "Harvey" being released! Yes, it's a little crazy, but it was really funny and we drove back to our hotel with "The Bunny Hop" stuck in our heads :)

After crashing to sleep, we woke up excited to go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. This was the part of our trip that I was most excited about. It's soooo yummy!! Again, we stuffed ourselves to the brim and rolled happily out of the restaurant.

Because I had picked our hotel based on its proximity to Cracker Barrel, we ended up being only a 15 minute drive from the baseball park in downtown Phoenix. We found 5 dollar parking (cheaper than the lightrail tickets would have been) and braved the mass crowds of people cramming into the park.

We took this picture of me with D-backs Mickey Mouse just for Carrie :)

And sorry it's blurry, but people were moving so fast, I only had one chance to snag this picture of Justin with giant Matt Williams. (Giant Gonzo is in the background)

The view from our seats. We ended up being super lucky that our lower level seats were underneath the second level balcony so we were in shade the whole game! It was 80 degrees outside and they had the roof open, it was a beautiful day!!


Sometimes it still amazes me how big this ballpark is!!

We got to see Michael Oher (The guy who the movie "The Blind Side" is about) throw out the first pitch! The ball hit the dirt way short of the catcher and the announcer said, "And that's why he plays football ladies and gentlemen!" It was hilarious :)

Justin indulged my sweet tooth and when we went to get hot dogs for lunch, we picked up some cotton candy too. Yummy!

The Diamondbacks won, which always makes the game more fun!! Once the game was over, so was our weekend outing. We had a wonderful early Anniversary staycation and I hope we can do it again sometime!!