14 years

Tyler and I have been married for 14 years today!

 In front of the new outdoor theater. We weren't able to see a show in this theater because we went to the Fall season. But we will next year. I love how much it reminds of the Old Globe in London.


We took our annual pilgrimage to Cedar City for the Shakespeare Festival. Friday afternoon we dropped Colin plus girls off to their favorite neighbors four doors down, the Smith's, until Samuel came home from school. Samuel has late start on Fridays and the girls have early out. Kind of annoying. Then around 6pm, Aunt Hannah came over. She made them spaghetti dinner, played a fun candy game and then they got to watch a movie. Then the girls got to sleep in the same bed with her. They were excited about that. Not sure how Hannah felt about Cecily kicking her all night, lol. Then, on Saturday, Hannah made them pumpkin pancakes while Samuel went to a young men/young women's service project. Hannah left after lunch. They went to the Smith's again until Micaela and her crew came and finished up the job. I always get anxious when we leave town, even for one night. Especially since we didn't leave a cell phone with Samuel who was in charge. But our friends and family helped out and we came back to happy and safe children! Yay! We are so grateful to these families and friends who helped us out!

We lucked out and got 4 free tickets this year to the festival!! Our friends won them on a radio show and couldn't use them so offered them to us! We saw Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, a comedy. Both were excellent. We stayed at our usual location, however, the name was changed. It was Crystal Inn for the first 5 years and now it's a Ramada. We decided it's kinda ghetto and we're going to look at other options next year. The breakfast was fine. The property is more cleaned up but the beds and amenities kinda stink. One year we stayed at a B&B . Although I loved the proximity to the shows and walking distance to restaurants, we won't go that route again either.

We enjoyed delicious meals undistracted from our children. We went to our favorite Mexican hole in the wall place, La Casa Don Miguel. Then we went to Centro Pizza (sooo yummy) for lunch and The French Spot for dessert. It's this new little, street side hut type eatery, run by real French people. Tyler had a Creme brulee and I had chocolate mousse. Both were very delicious.

Saturday morning we attended a play seminar (each morning they offer a talk-back session on days previous shows) and an actor's seminar (when two actors come and we get to ask them questions!). I love to attend these, as I can relate to them and it brings me back to my college performance days. Sometimes I just really miss those times.

On our way we home we stopped at this Utah franchise restaurant called One Man Band Diner. I love diner's (and we had a coupon) so I was excited to finally try it. We pass it often when visiting my parents. Well, that location didn't honor our coupon so we continued north to the one in Lehi. I got my usual country fried steak and potatoes and they were delicious!  I hope one day I'll get to make my girls poodle skirts and be able to take them to places like that. I loved going to Gunther Toody's in Arvada as a girl.  I love the 1950's so I think that's why I love diner's, plus the food can just be so American. Love it.

So, that was our anniversary celebration! It was relaxing and memorable. I love that I still feel so comfortable with Tyler. We've certainly had our ups and downs, disagreements and moments of distress. But overall I feel blessed to be married to a good man.

Here are some previous blog posts with photos and videos that I've made over the years about Tyler or our anniversary!

http://stoehrs.blogspot.com/2009/10/feeling-itchy.html
http://stoehrs.blogspot.com/2008/11/feeling-better.html
http://stoehrs.blogspot.com/2010/09/labor-day-weekend.html
http://stoehrs.blogspot.com/2012/11/tyler.html with a video I made him for Father's day in 2012.
 (except the video I made has copyright issues--I used a song that I don't have legal access to use, drat. So somehow I'll have to upload it some other way. You can still watch it...just without sound.

Labor Day Weekend

Tyler and I had the opportunity to head down to southern Utah for the Labor Day weekend. We decided to celebrate our 8th year wedding anniversary early while Tyler had the weekend off.

BIO (ie, long and journaly version): We dropped Samuel and Jocelyn off at my parents house in Mt Pleasant (thanks again to Levi, mom and dad for watching the kiddos!) We then headed down to St. George. Tyler's brother Troy and his wife Jana live down there and they were gladly willing to watch Cecily for us while we attended the Utah Shakespeare Festival!!! Remember how I majored in Acting and Theatre Education at BYU? Ya, sometimes I forget too it's been so long since I participated. But now I get to participate as an audience member more often than on stage (sigh). Anyway, I had been once before with my Aunt and Uncle when I was younger and single and loved it! I've been wanting to go since then and take Tyler but it's so dang expensive. But after Tyler's dad gave us a commission for referring my sister to him as a Realtor, (thanks Steve!) we were able to afford to see 3 shows and to stay in my other uncles condo down there.

Some people have a hard time with Shakespeare. He's one of the people I would LOVE to meet in heaven. I don't know what I'd ask him, I just want to observe him. And yes, I think he did pen all of his plays, all by himself. I am not of the belief that it was a committee or even a female that wrote his masterpieces. I think he was a pretty special and oober talented guy like Mozart or Monet. I've heard many people say they don't understand Shakespeare and would rather not see his plays, too daunting. Well, it is like a separate language. All the "thee's" and "thou's" etc etc, it's like the scriptures sometimes. But after the first 5 minutes you really begin to settle into the rhythm of the language (especially if the acting is good enough) and you don't even notice it anymore. Fun times :) And this is also why I love Tyler so much more. Because he understands it! Better than I do, in fact. Plus he wanted to see these Shakespeare plays, which is so attractive to me. I have culturized him!

So we were able to see 3 shows. The first and the best, Merchant of Venice. Shylock was amazing. Then Much Ado About Nothing, a great romantic comedy. And then the tragic Macbeth. The cursed Macbeth. You know you're not supposed to say that word on or behind a stage? You have to call it "The Scottish play." It's bad luck if you do. Superstitious really. If you do, you have turn in a circle 3 times and say something that I can't remember. You should say, "Break a leg" instead of "good luck" also.

So anyway, our bad luck did not come from saying Macbeth on stage. Our trip started out nicely. We headed down without having to calm children down, break up fights or throw water bottles to the back. We just had Cecily to take care of. We were able to talk or think in quiet! Ahhhhh. Then we got stuck in some construction that set us back a bit in time. And right as we pulled off the freeway to drop Cecily off we got a flat tire. But Tyler was the quickest flat tire changer that I have seen and we were on the road again quickly and made it to the show (which is in Cedar City, 1 hour north) just in time.

That was the worst of the weekend though really. Other than my stupid head cold and Cecily not being the best sleeper. And having to drive b/w shows (2 hour round trip) to feed Cecily. We had a fabulous time at my uncle's condo (jetted tub and double shower heads....ahhhh) and enjoyed some time with Troy and Jana and Carson as well. Plus I scored a piece of furniture that I've been needing for a project that I haven't been able to find up north. (More on that around Christmas time when I finish it for Jocelyn. )

It was lovely and relaxing and I rarely missed our children. Of course, I did think about them but Tyler and I remarked, "notice how quiet it is? Oh, yes, it's because we are eating or driving in peace". So rejuvenating!

I would love to do this trip again sometime soon.

Here are a bunch of pics, taken after the fact bcse we never had time to take any while at the shows.


Tyler ate one of these apple tarts for dinner one night while I had a veggie pastie. Yum yum.






I love this outdoor theater. Perfectly cool in the evening. And so fun to watch shows under the stars. When I went to the original Globe Theatre in London I was a "groundling" because they were the cheapest "seats". It is where the peasants would watch the shows. See where the front row seats are, the most expensive today? That is where the groundlings would watch, except that there were no seats! They (we) had to stand the entire show! It was sort of exhausting at times. But if you really got tired you could just lean on the stage, right under the actors feet. Feel the spit when they spoke. It was that interactive back then b/w the actors and audience.

We set the timer on the camera. First take didn't work so well :)

While passing through Manti on the way to Mt P we stopped at the Temple we were married in.

Happy 8 years to us!