We’ve been thinking about our 10th anniversary since our 9th. We wanted to do something big and had narrowed it down to either a trip to Costa Rica or river guide school. When Glenna got diagnosed and came to live with us, planning became infinitely more difficult. (Maybe we should have known Costa Rica was bad luck, that was also the plan for our 5th anniversary and that didn’t turn out either.) Even if we’d logistically worked something out with family so we could go somewhere, there was always the fear that we’d be out of contact partying it up while she was dying. We decided it was probably best that we not make any big travel plans. We kind of moped around about it though. You know, Poor us, our life is so hard and our anniversary is going to be the worst ever. Boo, hoo, hoo. Super mature. At some point in January, I got a burst of optimism in the midst of the general malaise I was feeling and decided that we weren’t just going to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves, we were going to do something for our anniversary and it was going to be fun. I looked at all the local events that would be happening on our anniversary and bought tickets to the play An American in Paris. I bought Noel a new suit and me a new dress (all amazing clearance finds of course). We would at least getaway for a few hours in style.

I’m glad I made those plans months ago, because by the time our anniversary rolled around, we were too spent to make any plans. To put it in context, here was the calendar surrounding our anniversary:

• Saturday, February 25th – Glenna passed
• Thursday, March 2nd – We began traveling for the funeral
• Saturday, March 4th – Glenna’s funeral
• Tuesday, March 7th – Ellen’s birthday/traveling back from the funeral
• Friday, March 10th – Our anniversary
• Saturday, March 11th – Ellen’s birthday party with friends

And those were just the big things. Not included: planning the funeral, kids swim lessons, grieving, and typical life maintenance functions. Like I said, I’m glad we already had plans because otherwise we probably would have just gotten takeout and watched Netflix in our pjs. Instead, we had a pretty good day.

Both of the kids are in school at the same time for three hours, four days a week. Sometimes Noel and I take advantage of this and workout together. Running has been one of the things we’ve enjoyed doing together from the very beginning, so we decided we needed to go on a run. There had been a fire the day before on the nearby mesa, a place where we frequently run. We headed out to run there, not thinking anything about it because we’d heard the fire was out, but hadn’t realized a second fire had started. When we got to the trailhead we were met by Park and Rec officials putting up signs that the mesa was closed. We could see people on the mesa though (there are multiple trails that go up the mesa, we were just at the main one), and in an act of subversion left the main trailhead and made our way to the top via another route. (I’d like it noted that the mesa is big and the fire was on the side farthest from where we were so technically we weren’t actually in any real danger . . . )

That night we dressed up for our second, and much fancier date. We picked up our babysitter and hit the town.

While the kids ate mac n’ cheese, we ate dinner at Parisi’s, one of our favorite restaurants for special occasions. (We’d looked at going somewhere super fancy, but neither of us could get over the sticker shock and Parisi’s always delivers.) In case the pictures don’t speak for themselves, dinner was amazing.

After dinner, we headed downtown to the Denver Center for Performing Arts.  The play was a lot of fun – lots of ballet and singing –  and Noel even got into it after he overcame his acrophobia. (We had seats on the front row of the balcony and it was freaking him out a little. ♥) We headed back home and after taking the babysitter to hers, pulled some salted caramel cheesecake out of the freezer. (I seriously need to share the recipe on the food blog so you too can have this magic in your life.) We stayed up till midnight, which if you know me is late, and I didn’t even complain! It was a different kind of celebration than we’d thought we would have for our 10th anniversary, but it was still a blast. We’re planning on having many more anniversaries anyway so we have time for those other crazy adventures.