Anniversary Weekend!

So yes, we celebrated our anniversary last week, and it was part of a weekend-long celebration!  Here are some of the happenings:

•  On Saturday morning we were up bright and early to run the fun and casual Alpine Days 5K with the fam.  It's ever so early, but we still have a good time.  I placed second in my division, coming in at about 20:52 (6:37/mile, though I think it was actually about 3.15 miles, so go ahead and take a few seconds off, hmm?), and they even gave me a medal for my efforts.  I checked here on my blog, and learned that I cut a couple minutes off my time from when I ran this race two years ago, and SEVERAL minutes off from the first time I ran it the year before that (last year we were in London so we missed this one).  Since we all ran a race, we were totally justified in indulging in some delicious french toast from Kneaders.

That little armband is pretty much a thing of the past.  I guess that's what you get when you pay $1 for it from some knock-off overseas website (and it takes over a month to arrive).

Why do I look so weird in this picture?  I admit I didn't plan out my expression or posture very carefully.

 

•  Then, since we decided running a 5K wasn't enough exercise for one day, we decided to finally hike to Timpanogos Cave.  We've been talking about it for months (even years!), and we finally decided while we're in the neighborhood we should just go.  We invited everyone to come, but in the end only Mom and Dad joined in.  It's a pretty good hike, especially in mid-day in the dead of summer (never again, I should think...), but we made it all right.  The cave itself is pretty cool, it had been years since I had been there, and it was Julie's first visit, so we appreciated Ranger Andy's guidance, even though we were really late for our scheduled tour time.  We were extremely sweaty, but the cave immediately drops like fifty degrees, so I was pretty glad about that.

Mountains!  They'll be even prettier in a couple of months.

We headed up while Dad parked the car, but then we decided to wait for him.  Here are the lovely ladies waiting in the shade.

And then, amazingly, I spotted Dad, and if you look closely, you can too.  He's wearing a white hat.  Where's Waldo?

Getting ready to have an adventure!

Oh calm down, it's not as far out as it looks.

We took a lot of pictures inside the cave, but this, ye legendary Heart of Mt. Timpanogos, is one of the ones that came out best.  (When I asked The Wife if she remembered its proper name, her reponse:  "I dunno, it's da heart of da world!"  Well said, Wife.)

It's us!  It was dark in there, and SO nice and cool.

This is Caramel Falls or whatever, but it kind of looked more slimy and less delicious than caramel.

That's the original entrance.  Can you even imagine?

That was SCARY.

We were really curious where these mystery doors led...

Hello, Utah Valley.

I call this one Wife in Archway.

She was all worn out by the time we were down.

• To finish things off, we celebrated our anniversary proper on Monday by giving surprise gifts throughout the day and going out on the town.  We had a very fancy dinner at Chef's Table, and to balance out the expense, went to a very cheap movie at the dollar theater.  Dinner was really quite delicious and deluxe, and Chef's Table lived up to its reputation pretty well.  I had some really good pork tenderloin medallions with the most amazing mashed potato truffles, and Julie had the salmon, which was really excellent too.  Their bread is awesome, and each entree comes with soup or salad (which, I believe, should be the case at every restaurant).  It seemed just a little overpriced, especially when you consider the view is a trailer park and power lines, but we were glad to go there finally.  The movie was Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (in 3D!!!).  We decided to give it another chance and tried really, really hard to give it a little slack, but really, it's just kind of a mess.

What better to go with pork than bacon?  I am trying to look sophisticated, because this is a FANCY place.

What an elegant and dainty wife!  And such delicious fish.  And you can see the trailer park out the window.

Yay for leftovers!

One rose for each month.  It should be noted that flowers don't do well if your apartment is 85+ degrees at all times.  Also, flower food helps.

At dinner we also exchanged a couple of gifts (though there were a few for-both-of-us hidden surprises left for The Wife to find throughout the day... like the necessary volumes to complete our collection of this little number).  My surprise to Julie was a long-desired piece of jewelry, and hers to me was a DVD set that's not even available.  I never ever expected by favorite teen fandom series would belong to me in its entirety on DVD.

It holds up, even after all these years.

It was a splendid weekend.  Again, it's been two glorious years, and there's no end in sight. :D