Valentines in Bryce Canyon

A month ago I entered yet another giveaway, this one by Maverick Adventure Getaways, not expecting to win. Imagine my surprise when I won an overnight stay at a hotel, dinner and tickets to a concert! The giveaway didn't specify where the overnight stay was, just that it was over Valentine's weekend, so I was a little surprised to discover it was four hours away! I had never been to Bryce Canyon, but I had seen the beautiful pictures, so it was a happy surprise.

After dropping off our girls, who practically threw them themselves out of the car to spend the night at Grandpa and Grandma's, we headed down to Ruby's Inn at Bryce Canyon. We were so excited to be there and start exploring and doing that we didn't even take a picture of the Inn, which was beautiful. It's a HUGE place with a log cabin feel, it's own grocery store, post office, restaurant and beautiful swimming pool, among other things. We found this picture, which shows early visitors to Bryce Canyon, while waiting to get seated in the restaurant, and it made me grateful I had air conditioning and a comfy ride on our way down there.

It isn't often that I see a sign translated into multiple languages, without Spanish being one of them. Judging by the conversations ebbing and flowing around us in the restaurant and other areas of the hotel, people from all over the world were staying there that weekend.

After our awesome, and free, meal at the hotel restaurant, we headed over to the concert across the street. The tickets were for a Ty Herndon concert. It was in a much smaller building than I had expected, a place where they do dinner theater, which made it more personal and super fun!

Ty Herndon gave a great performance, and I would go to another of his concerts in a heartbeat!

The next morning, after an invigorating swim in the pool, we headed to Bryce Canyon. 

Bryce Canyon was inspiring. Such a huge expanse of red rocks in odd, beautiful shapes stretching across the horizon!

 We had a wonderful, super romantic weekend! Who knew that without kids around I could sleep through the night?

It was great to spend time with the love of my life and just get time to focus on us.  I have an awesome hubby who was ready to drop everything with 2 days notice to spend the weekend with me! We love exploring new places together and this was a great chance for us to relax together. Thanks Maverick Adventure Getaways for the weekend away!!

First Snow!

This past Saturday we all went up the canyon for a little hike to see the first snow of the season. We drove up until the road turned to dirt and then drove some more. I think our Corolla must have been a jeep in a prior life; it seems to get us there no matter the conditions. This time it was mud that would rival some of the meanest looking rally car courses! (for those concerned for our safety, even though it looked like a rally course, we drove more like it was a drivers ed practice area.)

We found a spot and went for a walk up to the top of near-by hill and enjoyed the view. There is something so refreshing about going for a walk in nature; the crisp fall air, getting away from the rush of the city, making memories with the people that mean most to me. It was a lot of fun! It gets me excited for winter to make it's entrance; we just got some snowshoes to help us keep hiking through the coming season.

We also got to test out the new Abby carrying backpack! I left the canopy that came with it back at home but with a little on-the-fly engineering, we were able to keep the sprinkles off our smallest adventurer.