It's hard to believe we've been married for 15 years! To celebrate, we decided to take a long weekend trip to Arizona; neither of us had ever been before. We landed in Phoenix about lunchtime on Thursday, and we found a great pub with delicious food. From there we headed on to our hotel, JW Marriott at Camelback Mountain. It was a beautiful day so we decided to take a little hike up Mummy Mountain which is just behind the hotel. It provided some great overviews of the city, and we were amazed at the different fauna. Who knew there are so many different times of cactus plants?! After exploring the hotel some too, we decided to enjoy a drink down at the outside bar around one of the huge fire pits. They had a great musician playing, and we simply enjoyed sitting outside under the stars. We finished the evening enjoying a charcuterie plate on our huge side balcony the hotel had sent up to welcome us.
On Friday, we woke up early (not too bad given the time change) and started our drive to the Grand Canyon. About halfway there, it started to snow some and we could see ice on the road. The weather was clear the whole time though; really it was a beautiful day. Thankfully, Ryan drove carefully and we made it a little bit later. I'm so glad that we did! We've always heard "pictures just can't to the canyon justice" and we couldn't agree more. It was so beautiful. We were amazed at all the different layers that you could see. There were so few people there too; at times, it was unbelievably quiet which was wonderful. There was a little snow on the ground, so that was fun to walk around in. At one point, there was a small herd of elk grazing nearby, so we followed them for a bit which was neat to watch. They are clearly used to people being around! This was such a lovely day!
We spent about 4 or so hours taking in all the views from the South Rim. We finally decided it was time to start driving back. Instead of going straight back to Phoenix though, we took a detour so we could visit Sedona that evening. We'd heard from so many people how spectacular it is. Again, we weren't disappointed. We got there just before sunset so we were able to see several of the incredible rock formations. After the sunset, we ate a wonderful dinner at The Hudson which sat on top of a hill, and we had a good view of the city. We headed on back to Phoenix after that. This was a wonderful day!
On Saturday, we slept in a little, and then headed over to the hotel's spa to enjoy hot stone massages. We both enjoyed our massages, and some quiet time in our respective lounges. We stayed by the pool for a few minutes after that, but then decided to have lunch at the hotel's Mexican restaurant instead of the spa restaurant. We then spent the afternoon napping, reading and watching football. We truly love these opportunities to simply relax! We decided to head back down to the outdoor bar for dinner, drinks and more live entertainment. We spent a couple of hours enjoying the beautiful evening and talking with one another.
On Sunday, we took our time getting ready in the morning and enjoyed a delicious room service breakfast before heading over to the airport. We arrived home to hear all about the girls' weekend with Bama in the ice that was supposed to be snow!
This was such a great weekend of beauty, relaxing and enjoying our time with one another. What a great way to celebrate 15 wonderful years! When our actual anniversary did come about a few days later, I posted this collage. It's our wedding day and then one great day from each year there after. Not surprisingly, most of the days are from trips, but 2006 and 2008 are days our family grew, and 2015 was Ryan's graduation day from CIU.
So many great memories represented here, and it's only the tip of the iceberg! Ryan and I consider ourselves so fortunate to have such a great marriage. We love working together to make Team Hooks the best it can be. We have lots of similar interests and truly enjoy spending time together. We make each other laugh, and we respect and support one another. I pray that someday my girls can find husbands who love them like their Daddy loves me. These last 15 years have flown by. I can't wait to see what the coming years hold for us!
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