Then & Now

I have a couple more posts of pictures to add from the trip, but I just wanted to do a tiny comparison to 10 years ago when the Mister & I exchanged vows.

10 years ago:
He was on forced unemployment because he wasn't a citizen.  Basically he had about a 7 month vacation.
We lived with my parents.
I was working a temp job.
My wedding dress was the most expensive part of the wedding, I think.
He was a mechanic.
I had no idea what I was going to major in.
He spent his days (during the summer) flyfishing and hanging around the house.  He used to bake cookies or pick up coffee orders and take either or both to my Mom and her office mates at work.
Our "honeymoon" was 1 1/2 days in the cabin where we got married.  It was hot (hello?  mid-July?) and un-air conditioned and quiet.
We had Gunner, Matt's rambunctious Jack Russell Terror.  ;o)

Nowadays:
He works 10 hours a day, minimum, at least 5 days a week, sometimes 6.
I'm currently unemployed and keeping house.
He's no longer a mechanic, now he's a manager at a car dealership.
We own a house.  Sometimes Mom stays with us.
We finally went on a real trip, for a whole week!  It was busy and hot (hello?  mid-July?) and fun.
The most expensive thing we own is the house.
I'm a college graduate with a degree in geography.
I know I'd love to be a cartographer.
He never flyfishes anymore.  He does hunt, though.  And finally got his bull elk last year.

We have Amber and Lily, two sweet, hairy Golden Retrievers.  Between the shedding of the two of them, I think I could create another dog.

And we have a cat!
He's a US citizen!  (You can feel free to clap)

Between now & then we've lived in 2 different basement apartments, owned 3 different cars, lived only in Montana, been apart a total of maybe 20 days/nights and talk on the phone to each other at least once every single day.
Our life together is full, happy and lovely.  I can't imagine being anywhere other than by his side.

Electric storm

Our second night of the trip, after being moved to a better room--on a higher floor--we "enjoyed" watching a lightning storm from our balcony.

Day 3, part 2

After running into Maya and mom again, we parted ways.  Off we went to find the top floor of the museum, which supposedly has the best view in Denver.
We went through the bird exhibit and finally found the elevators.  Up we go...we finally arrive at the terrace!  I take 2 or 3 pictures, we may have been there about 15 seconds when a couple of museum guards came onto the terrace to announce that they had to close the terrace due to the lightning strikes in the approaching storm.  Fine, fine, I snap a few more pictures, then some more while we wait for the elevator to get to us.  Damn it.

So back down we went.  We ended up on the second floor again, in an atrium that overlooked the area we'd been above on the terrace.
We thought we'd hang out for a minute and watch the storm...

And....there's Maya!

Apparently Maya and mom had the same idea.  They'd just finished at the pirate exhibit with some booty.  So we hung out with them awhile longer and visited while the storm stormed outside.
Then we said we were going to go finish our visit and Maya asked us if we wanted to come with them.  She became our tour guide.  She mostly ignored me and lavished all her energy on the Mister.  And on our anniversary!  What a jerk.  ;o)

Maya tries to dock a space shuttle

And then just jumps on Mister's lap and looks at what he was looking at

Massive globe.  Bestill my heart.  -sigh

Meteorite--probably pretty hard to lift, but kooks are out there

cool meteorite

Mister & I thought the patterns on this resembled the Allspark from the Transformers.

Swimming through the air.

Following the space exhibit, we joined Maya in the gift shop.  I wandered about while Maya showed things to the Mister.  He bought her a rock and gave it to her as we were saying our goodbyes.  Oh, if only I'd gotten a picture of her face!  She just lit up and looked overjoyed that he'd gotten her a rock!  Such a small thing, but I bet that's her favorite thing for awhile....

We headed back to the hotel after that and then to a delish dinner at a local Italian restaurant.  It's owned by brothers that moved to the area from Italy years ago.  We shared a bottle of champagne to toast to "10 more years--we don't want to get carried away" and enjoyed the food and then went back to the hotel.

I will say now--yay for air conditioning!  While we were in Denver it rained every night and then managed to get into the 90's every day.  So the humidity was pretty high with the temps and the zoo felt like a sauna when we went.

Day 3--sights to see! Part 1

On the morning of the third day of our trip (our 10th anniversary!), we went to the Denver Science Museum.  We didn't get to see all the exhibits, but the ones we did see were pretty cool.  We started at the Minerals & Gems exhibit....(most of the pictures have their own explanation so click on them to read what's there)

The entrance to the exhibit

Quartz

Pyrite

An actual cave formation--they had moved an entire cave apparently.

Crystals inside the cave

Cool crystal!  Looks like hair

This is an amethyst geode--you can't tell from the picture, but it's about 4 feet dep

More amethyst

Gooooooold!

Large minerals/crystals

Aquamarine formation--our birthstone and Colorado's state gemstone

Gold display.  Two very thick safe doors on each side close every night to protect the display.

I love gooooooooold

More aquamarines

After viewing the exhibit, we headed for the IMAX theater for the show "Under the Sea".  While we waited in line, Mister & I kissed.  We saw the little girl in front of us poke at her mom and then say, "They kissed!"  She covered her mouth with her hand and looked back at us again.  It was pretty funny.  Of course the Mister then struck up a conversation with her.  Her name was Maya and she was wearing glitter on her face and sparkly flip flops.  That was the extent of the conversation.

We were let into the theater soon after.  Maya and her mom went to a lower area of seating and we sat higher and off to the side.  As we settled in, Maya arrived with her mom in tow.  She wanted to sit with us.  Luckily the Mister had a couple of seats open on his other side, so Maya sat next to him.  She told us, "We were sitting next to some Chinese people and I'm Chinese but I don't speak the language..."  And throughout the movie she would grab the Mister's arm and whisper something to him every now and then.

After the movie, we said goodbye to Maya and her mom.  They were going to the dinosaur exhibit and we were going to find the terrace.  Maya told the Mister, "I hope you don't get rained on!"

Off we went in search of the 4th floor for good vantage point pictures.  Somehow we got through running downstairs for him to have a smoke and as we came back upstairs we ran into Maya & mom again.  Mister told them we were still in search of the terrace and Maya immediately said, "Ok, let's go!" but her mom told her they were going to a different exhibit again.  Funny, right?

We made our way through a rare/endangered/extinct? birds exhibit (and let me tell you, they were a LOT more cooperative for pictures than the animals at the zoo the next day!)

Since I have a few more pictures of the rest of our day at the museum, I'll cut this day into 2 parts.