It's Our Anniversary And We'll Sleep If We Want To

Happy Monday everyone! We returned from our anniversary getaway yesterday afternoon, and we are definitely well rested for the week ahead! I don't know if I can say the same for my mom who has been with Rylie and Bryce for the past week. She may need a few days to recuperate.

Brian and I headed over to Tampa on Friday afternoon to get away for a couple of days for our 5th Anniversary. After we fought the parking lot on the interstate, we finally arrived and checked into the Windgate Tampa hotel. The Windgate Tampa is a very nice hotel near Busch Gardens and USF. It was super clean, and the free breakfast they had was definitely a plus! If you are looking for a nice hotel in Tampa, this should definitely be at the top of your list!

Anyway...after we checked into the hotel, I threw on a dress and freshened up a bit and we headed out to The Melting Pot for dinner. This is our "usual" anniversary spot, and just like years past, we had a fabulous dinner. We ordered a bottle of wine, and enjoyed our 4 course fondue extravaganza.

On Saturday morning we woke up to cloudy skies and a dismal weather forecast, but we headed over to Busch Gardens as planned. Apparently the impending storm scared everyone, because there was no one there. We were able to ride every single roller coaster we wanted to, and even got in the front row every time.

We rode the new Cheetah Hunt first. This roller coaster was awesome!!! When we got ready to head up to the (nonexistent) line, we heeded all of the warnings and secured our loose items. Well, at least we thought we did. Just after the first launch I heard someone say "well, someone just lost something." It turns out that someone was my husband, and that something turned out to be his phone. Yep, the dang thing went so fast that his phone came right out of his pocket!

Once we exited the ride, we started looking around in the bushes under the part of the ride where the phone came flying out of his pocket. My biggest fear was that it hit someone on the way down, but I didn't see any kind of ruckus going on, so I figured no one was injured. Thank goodness! A few minutes later, one of the caricature artists came over and handed Brian the front of his phone. It was beat up, and was missing the back, the battery and the memory card. We didn't look too much longer for the rest of the phone because we knew it wouldn't be able to be salvaged, but he was just glad to have the main phone so that no one could access his email and other personal information.

Brian was so distraught over his phone that we decided it was time for a beer...

Just look at that face! It didn't take long for him to drown his sorrows, and we were off to more thrill rides. Only this time, we made sure everything was in the "cargo" pockets of his shorts.

We rode every roller coaster there, and then Cheetah Hunt again and decided it was time for lunch. I noticed how black the sky was getting, so we decided to head to the car to try and beat the storm, and then just eat at one of the local restaurants. I ended up sitting right across from one of my high school friends on the tram (small world, right?), so we had a quick conversation, and as soon as the tram pulled into the lot where our car was parked, the sky opened up! So there we were, a few beers later, running our butts off to get to the car. Of course we were parked at the opposite end of the lot. That is just how we roll.

We finally got out of there and drove through the torrential downpour to Chili's, where we got soaked once again. It's a good thing I had shorts and a tank on and dried fairly quick! We had lunch (and another beer) and headed back to the hotel.

Once we dried off, we were going to hang out and watch TV for a bit, but when we couldn't find anything on, we decided to take a nap. We had every intention of getting up and going out to dinner, but when we woke up at 10PM, we just had some M&Ms that the hotel manager had left for us in a little goodie bag, watched a couple reruns of Friends, and then went back to sleep. Yeah, we slept for like 13 hours. It was wonderful! I can't remember the last time I got that much sleep.

We got up yesterday morning, had breakfast, and then headed over to the mall to do a little shopping. We ended up meeting up with my brother for lunch and then headed home.

I swear it seems like every time we take a vacation it rains. It is just par for the course with us, I guess. We went to Six Flags in Georgia several years ago and it rained. It rained pretty much every day of our cruise last year. And now this. It is a good thing that we have learned to make the best of it...or that we just drink enough to not care!

All in all, it was great to get away, just the two of us. We were able to relax and just have some "us" time. We're back home now, and everything is back to "normal" this week, whatever that is...