Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Milestones

In some sense of the word we can celebrate every day, but there are days that need a little extra something to make an indelible memory--like 25 years of marriage.  I love our marriage and I like to plan things, so I planned our anniversary date.  I ran all my ideas by Roland who is not very particular about the details of what we do to celebrate--he did say he wanted to have some fruit to eat.  This is not to say he doesn't care.  He does, but he really can have a great time in most any setting, so he would rather yield to my preferences to bring me joy.  It has taken years to understand this about him.

Our honeymoon was amazing.  We flew to NYC and saw Les Miserables and took a train through picturesque upstate New York to Quebec.  Roland planned it all and everything was a complete surprise to me.  I loved it.  I think it was expensive.  Usually newlyweds have a tiny budget and after 25 years of marriage there is a little extra, but this year we had a very small budget and I had big ideas--like a trip to France.
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Here is what we did.  The day before required a lot of preparations (this is how we stayed within our budget), but any significant trip requires advance preparations such as ticketing, reservations, packing, arranging for mail to be picked up, plants and yard to be tended and children to be supervised.  Roland's assignments were to get the show tickets (we volunteer at the Shakespeare Festival so we have a few complimentary tickets available to us), research our petrogyph outing, and serve as the tour guide.  I would transform our bedroom into a French hotel room and our dining room into a romantic restaurant table for two.  I also arranged for the children to serve as our "room service" hotel staff and "restaurant" waitstaff.  They seemed happy to help and even put a bell in our room to be rung for service.  I thought about what services I would love my hotel to provide and made them happen.  The day before our special day, I did some grocery shopping and some magic.

There was a welcoming fruit basket and fresh flowers in our room.












 I spent the day cleaning, changing the linens and decluttering our room for a fresh feel.  I put in a little card table (Thanks Belshaws) with a table cloth and two chairs for breakfast in our room.




I tossed pink rose petals and white feathers on the bed and put a fresh strawberry on each pillow.









 I found some cute printables on The Dating Diva's website.  They also had some fun couples game ideas, so I prepared those and put them in the basket with the show tickets.



















I had some help removing a leaf from our dinner table and decorated the "restaurant" to look like this.  It felt French to me.

Then I prepared the meals.  Even though the children were helping out, I wanted it to be fun for them and not too stressful.  I made a list of things for them to do and which dishes to use beginning with breakfast.  For lunch wouldn't it be great if the hotel provided picnic baskets for their guests to grab on their way out on day excursions?  Ours would, so I prepared a picnic basket with a table cloth and glasses and stored it in the hotel refrigerator. Sterling wanted to make the sandwiches for us just before we left so they would be fresh.  What a thoughtful suggestion.  I let him do that for us.


 Then I made the main dish for the restaurant dinner and gave baking instructions for the waitstaff.  They had all the ingredients for the the side dishes and dessert.

 The evening before our anniversary all we needed to do was to "pack our bags" for the trip, kiss our children goodbye, enter our French hotel room, and put the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door.  I have never recovered from jet lag so quickly!  Roland was happy to have avoided TSA entirely. We each had secretly found/made gifts for each other.  I found a second hand BYU hat for him and he made me a candle.  He bought an empty, tarnished silver candle holder second hand for 25 cents, polished it with a homemade silver cleaner and melted old candles and reused a wick to make it for me. What a treasure he is!


We had a fun time that night and in the morning ordered "room service".  This is what arrived.  French toast, strawberries and whipped cream.  Yum.  



We leisurely got ready for our excursion, nabbed our prepared picnic with fresh sandwiches and used the "hotel van" for our trip to see the petroglyphs in the "South of France".  From the New World Encyclopedia,  "The word petroglyph comes from the Greek words petros meaning "stone" and glyphein meaning "to carve" (it was originally coined in French as pétroglyphe)."   Here is a picture of a petroglyph in the Vallée des Merveilles.

File:Vallée des Merveilles 103.jpg

 Here we are on Roland's guided tour.



Roland explained this calendar.


Local Fauna




There was not a great picnic area near the petroglyphs, so we drove through the area until we found a suitable grassy area in the shade.  We stopped and picked some roadside flowers.



Our French Picnic
We talked a lot about our adventures over the last 25 years, did some more sight seeing including the "Eiffel Tower", and when we returned, the "hotel staff" had freshened up our room with strawberries and a heart-shaped rose petal display.



We decided to send a letter home to our kids.  Fortunately, the hotel had stationery and we left our letter with them for delivery.


Roland embellished the envelope

The postal service was fast!
We enjoyed our dinner at "Couple's Cafe" with Michael Buble music in the background.  Tikla called.  I don't know how she found the number for our restaurant. Then we took a 35 minute hovercraft to England and watched the Greenshow the message of which was perfect: "Make Someone Happy."  An anonymous person bought us a raspberrry tart and some pretty girls brought us glasses of water and souvenirs from the Shakespeare Festival.  Then we went to see the show Anything Goes.  When we returned we had the entire hotel to ourselves because someone had treated the hotel staff to a night off.  Our return flight in the morning was as effortless as our arrival.  

It is great to be home.
  
Roland is still feeling the blood clot in his leg, but nausea is gone except when he hears the word "chemo."  He is doing some education consulting part time and preparing for a possible medical illustrating contract.  The scan is slated for July 30 and we are hopeful that there is no evidence of the lung cancer and that he is completely well.

4 comments:

  1. Beautiful. I wish I could borrow your creative brain for a few days...but alas, that is not to be. Sigh.
    Hey! Did you know that we took the train to Quebec City for our honeymoon?! We stayed at Le Chateau Frontenac for...4 days I think. We had a little roomette on the train. On the way up--being newlyweds--we smooshed into the bottom bunk together, but on the way back no way! Well, after all, the honeymoon WAS over!

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  2. This makes me happy. People spend thousands of dollars on vacations that don't go well and make them sick. Yours made everyone feel great!

    JJ

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  3. What an amazing couple!!!! Thinking of you guys! <3

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  4. That has got to be the most romantic, best planned anniversary "on a budget" I've ever heard about! I'm impressed! Very creative! Love it! -Barbara Moe!

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