17th Wedding Anniversary, at Bear Lake

 Scott and I were married 17 years ago which was the best choice ever...either that or continuing to choose each other each day. Life has been a joyful adventure with Scott by my side and it keeps getting better. A great marriage takes continual work and care but it pays off. I'm looking forward to an eternity together.  I like this quote on love and marriage: "Love is a verb. The feeling of love is the fruit of love...Listen. Empathize. Appreciate. It's your choice." - Stephen Covey. 

Scott and I took a much needed, highly anticipated anniversary overnighter to Bear Lake. We went 'glamping' for the first time at Conestoga Ranch. I'm not much of a camper, but we both like to experience new things so we gave it a try. If you like camping but not all the work that goes behind camping, this might be a nice thing for you. But for me, it just felt like over-priced camping so we probably won't do that again, but we still had a great time and enjoyed ourselves, our conversations and activities. 

We stayed in a tipi. It was all set up for us. It had a mattress inside which was nice, and a cord for us to plug in our phones. I liked how spacious the tent was inside. But we did still have bugs get inside, and you still have to go outside (in my case, always in the middle of the night) and walk over to the building to use the restroom and I still hear the outdoor noises. This ranch has a restraunt in a large tent, and the food was delicious. We got pizza and salad. 

The ranch also had courtesy bikes and games on the lot, both of which we took advantage of. It was our first time on a tandem bike...it's trickier than it looks. 
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Bear Lake is known for their shakes (and in particular their raspberry shakes), so we made two shake stops, at Le Beau's and Zipz. Famous Raspberry shake. And of course, I ate mine with fries.  

We try to get away once a year, with just the two of us, even if it's just for a night. Pretty soon our kids will be grown and gone and it'll just be me and Scott. We always want to have a strong marriage, so having fun together, making memories, weekly date nights, and regularly connecting emotionally, physically and spiritually are important to us both. 

When we were ready for a fire, the ranch employees come out and start the fire. They also supply you with items to make smores which is nice. 

We ran into an old neighbor from our previous home, Scott Neeley, while at Bear Lake. He had his family with him and his boat, and offered to bring Scott and I out for a ride and to go tubing. 

The last time I went tubing was when I was 14. I went with my youth group and I took a tumble and got the rope around my neck, underwater, for a few scary seconds and was left with a HUGE rope burn all over my neck. All these years later and I still got a littler nervous as I sat on the tube, but I had made sure to share the experience I'd had with our friend, who was the driver. All was safe and we had a great time. 

On our way out, we stopped at Ruca's for lunch. We shared a raspberry Aebleskiver for dessert.