“don’t do [the dishes] today, it’s your birthday! do them tomorrow!” – tayte paul campbell

goodness, how i love that thoughtful, thoughtful boy :)
don’t worry, he made up for that comment completely.
for a while now, tayte has been saying “i can’t wait for your birthday!”
you see, he’s had this surprise up his sleeve and he was pretty proud of it.
i had given up guessing but then he dropped a hint about me needing a swimming suit.
in january.
in utah.
…wait what?
i didn’t know any specifics, but i had the general idea.
then tayte couldn’t take it anymore and he showed me pictures of where we were going.
{note: this whole adventure was only possible because school did not start on my birthday, as it had the previous 3 years, thank you very much.}

so we had to wake up early on that luverly day because we both had meetings with different professors.
well, i thought i would.
so i got up, put on my brand new jeans, ripped a hole in them, got grumpy, when to the school, sat there for an hour, talked to my mom, felt better, and then went home, not as grumpy.
we took care of some other stuff, like packing and watching psych and important things like that.
then tayte took me to lunch.
zupa’s.
i freaking love that place.
my dear husband is so good to me.
then we started driving in a northern direction.
we drove past heber and past the “middle of nowhere” area.
i saw a bald eagle and a deer with big antlers.
then we came to a little-ish town.
we passed “tate lane",” where i was determined to paint a “y” on the sign.
then we passed a “street lane.”
then we pulled into this place called “the homestead.”
it was a quaint little resort that kinda made time stop and made you feel like you lived in this little town.
at least for me.
its main attraction was this big hot spring called the crater.
”One of the most unique activities you’ll ever experience in your lifetime, The Crater is a geothermal spring hidden within a 55-foot tall, beehive-shaped limestone rock located on the Homestead property.”
it wasn’t very big, and there weren’t very many people in there.
you could soak, swim, snorkel, or get scuba certified.
i was a little freaked out when we went in to just look at it.
you see, i have an irrational fear of sharks, which results in an irrational fear of dark bodies of water.
because it was so warm inside and so freaking cold outside, that place was ridiculously steamy.
i’ll post pictures from the homestead’s website so you can see what it actually looks like.
it was very relaxing, and we stayed in there way past our allotted time.
nbd.
then we had dinner at their restaurant thing.
uh-maz-ing.
seriously.
it was so good.
anyway, it was a great experience.
i loved it, and i’m so glad tayte found this place in his utah book.
he’s just the best :)
here are the picturas:

us and a very large, very cold, and very real…thing.
note all the snow.
it’s everywhere…
…still.

it was really big.

here’s the tunnel hallway thing to get to the crater.

i realized there aren’t really any good pictures of the inside of this place.

it’s not that big, but it is oh so warm.

that’s how steamy it was.
no joke.
well…the camera made it look a tad more so.

see how fogged up my glasses are?

the tunnel wasn’t very tall, unlike tayte.

this was an awesome, very relaxing place.
i wish we could have stayed longer.
or been there during the day so there was some more light in there.
but it was the perfect birthday getaway :)
my husband is so good to me :)