Memorial Anniversary

I celebrated 2 important things last weekend:  Memorial Day and my 11th wedding anniversary.  Both are a huge deal if you ask me.  

I'll start with the former!

Memorial Day was actually celebrated by us on Saturday the 28th.  We were invited to go to a "couples + kids" beach party.  My hubby had to work, so it was just me braving it alone with 3 kids.  Yikes!  When the reality that I would be there with all 3 kids and with zero spousal backup, really made me nervous.  Then I realized that I could imagine it being hard all I want, but I would never really know how hard it was until I actually attempted to take them to the beach alone.  So, I put on my Momma Bear boots, got up early, packed up the kids and headed to the beach.  Incase you didn't already know this, there are about a million beaches in California.  All of which seemed to be lined up right next to eachother.  You can literally drive right past the beach that you want to go to without even knowing it.  Knowing this made me drive very cautiously down the PCH, searching for the beach that I was supposed to meet everyone at.  Luckily, I found it no problem.  Phew!  When the kids and I got there, it was cold, extremely windy and the sun hadn't even thought about coming out from behind the clouds.  We waited it out for an hour or so and the sun finally decided to come out and play.  My #1 and #2 made friends instantly with some girls on the beach.  They played and played and played.  I barely saw them except for when they were hungry or thought that they had been stung by a jelly fish on the butt.  

While they were playing, I got to sit with the baby on my lap, and converse with a bunch of ladies that I had never met.  We all had one thing in common, and that was that we all had kids.  We just sat there and talked for hours about our babies/kids.  I really enjoyed it, although one of these days I'm going to have to learn to have conversations with women that don't involve my children.  For now, it's acceptable!  I think....  

When the late afternoon came around, I just knew that the traffic on the 91 would be horrendous, so I made the executive decision that it was time for us to head home.  I packed up all of our beach crap, loaded my exhausted kids up, hugged everyone goodbye, and headed for home.  The traffic on the 91 WAS horrendous.  On top of that, my baby didn't want to take a nap, but my #2 DID.  The baby wouldn't stop whining, cooing, or jibber jabbing, and that made my oldest daughter very very irritated.  She doesn't realize just yet that yelling at the baby is not going to make the baby be quiet.  Needless to say, the ride home was about as close to hell on Earth as I could imagine it to be.  

When we got home we were all ready to eat dinner and go to bed.  I hoped in the shower in an attempt to get the sand out of my hair.  As I stood there letting the water run through my nasty hair, I reflected on the fact that I did it.  I took all of the kids to the beach by myself, and it was...wait for it....FUN.  Then ut of no where, I felt my thighs stinging.  I actually thought that maybe I was stung by a jelly fish too.  Then I realized that I didn't even get into the water.  I looked down and saw that I had THE WORST sunburn on my thighs.  Ooooops!  Like a complete moron, I forgot to put sunscreen on my legs.  To think, I was actually proud of myself that I was wearing shorts to the beach that day.  My legs hadn't seen the light of day in about a year.  When I got out of the shower I saw that my legs closely resembled a lobster.  Then I looked up, and saw that the one spot on my forehead that I hadn't put sunscreen on was equally as lobstery.  Here I am, 4 days later, and my legs and forehead still hurt.  My forehead has decided to peel too, and boy does that make me feel attractive.  Not!  Thank you, Jesus, for aloe vera!

Now, on to the later!

Our 11th wedding anniversary was on Sunday the 29th.  My hubby planned everything out and was going to keep it a secret, until I was snoopy and figured it all out.  I don't know why I did that, because I love surprises.  My sweet sister-in-law helped us out and watched all of the kids for us.  We drove to Palm Springs and went on the Aerial Tramway up the mountain. It was so amazing!  This was way better than the coffee cup that I gave to him that morning with the lyrics to "our song" printed on it.  He said that he liked it, but come on!  How cheese is a coffee cup? Our Tramway basket thingy had a rotating floor so that everyone in the basket could get a complete 360 view of the mountains during the ride.  I wish that I had my camera with me, because the views were spectacular.  There were some dark clouds that were rolling in which made for a kind of awesome doomsday kind of feel at the top of the mountain.  

My hubby had made reservations for us at the restaurant up there called The Peaks.  The couple who we sat next to were also there on there anniversary.  We toasted to our long lasting relationships and wished each other good luck.  The food was not good at all.  Joe said that he had better ravioli from the frozen section at the grocery store, and my salmon tasted like it was from the Ikea cafeteria.  So to make up for our over priced yucky food, we went to PF Chang's for their Great Wall of Chocolate dessert.  About 10 minutes past, and our food server came back and told us that they were all out of the Great Wall of Chocolate.  She then followed it up by saying that they NEVER run out of THAT dessert.  Just our luck, I guess.  To make up for it, our sweet server had the manager comp which ever dessert we wanted.  

All in all, our anniversary was memorable.  We did something that neither of us had ever done and we experienced it together, which is most important.  Here's to many more years of marital bliss!