10th Year Anniversary

Every year we take turns planning our anniversary. Most of the time we end up going to a nice place for dinner and staying at a nice place for the night. This was Janalynn's year and she wanted to go all out. Which was fine with me. I must admit though that she did not tell me where we were going or what to pack, this would cause a few minor problems along the way.





Our first stop was Zion National Park, which will be the priests destination here in a week. Oh, I need to say that despite my saying I would not read Twilight, Janalynn really wanted me to so she got in on cd so we could listen. I will post about my thoughts on Twilight in another post, I will say it is definitely written for girls. But enough of that. Zion is such a great place. It is a place of peace, where nature meets the spiritual side. I really enjoy going there. Janalynn had never been so this was a nice stop for us. We took the shuttle and stopped at every stop and walked around, took photos, and took in the scenery.





Note: This was where one of those problems was, I packed a pair of church shoes, that was told to, and my "bowling shoes". Needless to say I didn't really have good shoes to hike or walk around in. This isn't the only time this was a problem.

If you eat around Zion you will pay about $5 to $10 more per person than you normally would because of where you are.

Fatali Gallery down in Zion is incredible. Check out the link

Next stop was Las Vegas for the Bodies exhibit at the Tropicana. Janalynn had heard from a few people that this was the thing to do and see in Vegas. For $34 a person it is NOT. Sure it was neat. But basically you are in a museum for and hour and a half reading and looking at the body. It is neat, but you could read a book or see a neat special on it. It certainly is not worth it to go all the way to Vegas to see it and pay their asking price. Oh, and Janalynn was more disappointed than I was.


Unless you drink or gamble there just isn't that much to do in Vegas. We don't do either and after realizing that every casino is the same on the inside we went to our hotel in Mesquite--the Casablanca.

Since I had the shoe problem still I couldn't really wear shorts. I relaxed. I had a foolproof method to win thousands at Roulette, alas I didn't have the guts to see if my method was really foolproof. I had a sinking suspicion that I would end up the fool.

They had a great seafood and prime rib buffet. I was totally satisfied and we talked the hostess into giving Janalynn a discount, she actually ate for free. Which is good cause it isn't worth paying for a buffet when you can only eat a fistful of food.

In retrospect Janalynn wishes we never would have gone to Vegas and instead just spent our time in St. George. She got her first taste of In-N-Out Burger. When we were driving there we passed Burger King and there was one car in the drive thru, I told her to wait til we got to In and Out. Wow. There was at least 10 maybe 15 cars in the drive thru and the line was to the door. We were order #91, they called out #56 as we finished ordering. They only have three things on the menu, hamburgers, fries, and drinks. But they do it better than any place. The place was absolutely packed. It was a cool experience.

We went to the St. George Temple next. This is really a neat place. It is in actuality the oldest running temple, since Kirtland and Nauvoo went down and the Salt Lake temple took forever to finish. Being together in the temple is really the way to celebrate an anniversary. To me it was the culmination of the last ten years. More on temples in another post.






We ended up going to Tuacahn for Les Miserables. This was a fantastic performance. They had some incredible performers. Despite the sadness of the story it was really a great performance I would totally recommend it to anyone.

Some notes on the play: Don't get dinner there. They give you an option to come early and eat there, avoid the temptation and go out to eat. We ended up eating outside on paper plates drinking kool aid and fanning our food from bees. The food was average at best.

We sat in the middle of all these elderly people. They were as entertaining as the play itself. They were constantly talking out loud, but really loud cause they couldn't hear themselves. One real old lady had this hearing aid that was really loud, luckily as she put it so everyone within five rows could hear, "I can hear better without it." and turned it off.

The setting in unparalleled. It is a remarkable place for a performance.

Finally, the last ten years have been great. No one has ever made me want to be a better person than Jan. Each year has gotten better and better. And I get to plan next years event.