So much time and so little to do...

It'll take me all week to catch up on what happened last week, so let's just dive right in and go day by day.

April 20, 2010: Husband and wife for nine years.

Olen had planned a surprise getaway for our anniversary even after I told him I just wanted to lay low and finish organizing our {blasted} storage shed for our anniversary. I'm glad we went with his idea. 

What was written in for me in my planner:

Our kids were so excited for their own getaway to Grandma and Grandpa Reynolds' house. I hardly ever say yes to sleepovers so this was an extra special occasion for the kids to have one-on-one time with their grandparents. It was still hard for me to not say how much Porter would have loved this or how London would have had such a bast here or how much I missed Daisy's smooches though.

Sedona is beautiful. Northern Arizona has all of my favorite Arizona cities.

Getting artsy on ya, that's how Sedona rolls.

We have also escaped to Sedona for our 6th wedding anniversary and Olen took me on a detour through Jerome on our way home. He bought me three rings from a local jeweler's shop there, each with the birthstones of Porter, London and his own. On this trip we made plans to visit the retired mining town to buy a ring with Daisy's birthstone and maybe one with mine, too.

Jerome is such a fantastic, dusty old town. In its heyday it was a successful copper mining town. All the homes are built on the side of a mountain and the roads are curvy and narrow. Now the main street is lined with local artisan shops, antique stores, cafes and museums with old mining stories. Jerome isn’t really on the road to anywhere else, unless you want to take the scenic route to Prescott. The tiny town is a magnet for tourists, treasure hunters and the hippies that can call any one of the dozens of abandoned houses their summer home.

I put a dollar in these aspiring musician's tin cup so I didn't feel guilty about taking their picture. Yes, it really was a tin cup. They were singing a song about rainbows and water that got stuck in my head, I am so glad I can't remember it now.

A lot of the shops are also the shop owner's houses. They will usually live on the bottom or top floor of the house and run the shop out of the street-level floor. This was one of my favorite shops, which was sadly closed on this trip.

I was telling Olen that the people who live in Jerome must be half mountain goats. The residents park their cars on the street and then have to climb a million stairs to get to their front door. I loved what this house did with its stairs; I think climbing these every day would never get old.

 
 

I snapped this photo from the car on the way up to the town. (I regret not taking pictures of the heart of the town, but it's awkward to just take a picture of someone's house and I didn't have that many dollars to slip in their mailboxes to payoff my guilt.) This just gives you an idea of the architecture of Jerome but doesn't at all capture the spirit of the town. There are grand Victorian Painted Ladies at the top of the road that have boards over the windows and flaking paint on the door frames. To me, the town is bitter-sweet. It’s like visiting a loved relative in a retirement home and then leaving remembering the days when they could walk and run and live but still feeling happy that they are getting the quiet attention they require in their old age. It’s very romantic and forgotten at the same time.

 

The jewelry shop we came to see was gone, it is now a store for high-end leather goods. There were a handful of other jewelry shops in town, but I didn't find what I was looking for. I guess that means we'll have to come again.

 

Walking uphill all day wore us out and gave us an appetite.

For lunch, we ate at a local sandwich shop and loved it but for dinner, there's nothing like the Cracker Barrel. I know I'm really letting my hillbilly show, but I can't help it, I love a place I can buy old-fashioned Tootsie Roll sticks and John Deere onesies on our way out.

Olen tried to beat me at the table game of pegs. He sure did try, sweet boy, but I love a good game of strategy.

 

This is how I polished off my half-pound bacon cheeseburger. 

This is Olen asking me if I was hungry or something.

Back at the resort, I got to read without interruptions, such a luxury!

I started Little Women and never realized how much of a Meg I am. Mom always said I was Meg, but I stomped my foot and told myself I am really Jo. This is probably a subject for another post...

We slept too little and ate too much and left the iron plugged in without a second thought of it getting knocked over. 

For three days we lived just like newlyweds...who have been married nine years and couldn't wait to get back to their kids.