Lagoon!

When Brian left for work yesterday, he kissed me goodbye and said, "I'll probably be home around 2:00 or so."  I put some blankets in the washer, swept the kitchen floor and washed some dishes.  I was about to pull the vacuum out when I heard the key in the lock.  "Brian?"

"I'm home!" he called out cheerily.

I looked at the clock on the microwave.  "It's not even 11:00," I said.  "You're home early."

"Yep!  And we're going to a surprise place, so get ready!"

I just sort of stood there like a dumbfounded fool.  He went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, undressed and then poked his head out.  "Come on!  Get moving!"

So I did.  We both got ready for the day as quickly as we could and before long we were sitting in the car on the freeway headed north.  I didn't know right away where we were going, but eventually I got an idea.  He had said to wear shorts so I knew we would be outside... We were driving in the right direction...  I had mentioned to him that I've never been there before...

Sure enough, we were headed to Lagoon!

For those who may not know, Lagoon is an amusement park in Farmington, Utah which is just north of Salt Lake City.  To be more specific, it's part amusement park, part water park, part carnival, part zoo and part museum.  I never knew that there was so much variety.  We started out the day playing some arcade games where we won over 4,000 tickets which of course amounts to nothing when it comes time to cash them in for prizes.  We got a lot of random stuff like stuffed toys, playing cards, whoopie cushions, and glow-in-the-dark friendship bracelets (because Brian and I are besties, ya know).

After the arcade, we decided to ride on some rides.  My favorites were probably Wicked, The Spider and Colossus.  Brian said when he was a kid he would make his dad go with him on Colossus over and over again.  I thought that was pretty cute.  We probably would have ridden on more rides than we did, but sometimes roller coasters combined with junk food like Icees and hamburgers make my tummy feel a little funny. 

So we spent some time losing at carnival games (except for the Lucky Duck game which is beyond easy) and then roamed around the Pioneer Village side of the park.  That's where Lagoon becomes a sort of museum/zoo.  There are lots of different buildings like an old-fashioned pharmacy, print shop, dentist's office, that sort of thing with various artifacts.  There was also a little museum about the telephone and one about circuses.  They even had some animals, like deer and stuff, that would get right up next to the fence and nuzzle your hand.  It was pretty cool.

We ended our day with an aerial ride over the park in what's basically a ski lift.  Pretty neat to see the park from above and feel like you're flying through the tree tops.  We never did do any water stuff, but we didn't bring swimsuits and let's face it, we're much too fat to be running around shirtless.  Perhaps someday.  Lagoon offers this bounceback program and if we bring our validated tickets back within ten days we can get in for a discounted rate.  Brian says next week is kind of slow for him, so we just might do it on one of my days off.

I asked Brian why he decided to surprise me like this, and he said the idea just came to him while he was at work.  He thought about me, sitting at home all weekend with nothing exciting to do, and he thought, "Hey, he's never been to Lagoon in all these years he's lived in Utah."  So he skipped out on work and took me out.  I am very grateful for the gesture and I had a very enjoyable time with my sweet, spontaneous man.