salt lake city.

Even though I've been back since Monday morning, I have yet to post on the great mini-vacation to Salt Lake City over the weekend. The reason for the delay, mainly has to do with life-altering, excruciating kidney stones. But, I'll talk about more about that later.

Friday evening, Micah and I embarked on a pre-six month anniversary celebratory weekend. I know, Salt Lake City, you're asking? Well, it just so happened that Southwest had $25 dollar tickets awhile back and since neither of us had been, we decided to give it a try. Worst case scenario, we lay around in the hotel room all day long watching t.v., only leaving to fulfill food needs. Anyway, we arrived in SLC around 6, made it to the lovely Peery Hotel, and based on yelp reviews we headed to Takashi for some sushi. I must say, for a city completely landlocked with very little diversity (wait, are we talking about Denver?), the sushi was pleasantly surprising. In fact, it was good! AND, it was reasonably priced as well!

(The Peery Hotel)

(Inside front lobby)

All was going well, until 4:45am Saturday morning, when I woke up writhing in pain. It was terrible; the kind of pain where there is no relief from tossing and turning and contorting your body into thousands of different positions. I guess the kidney stone discussion didn't stay away for very long. Background: Three years ago I went to the emergency room because I passed a kidney stone. It was painful; in fact some say kidney stones are worse than giving birth; though I wouldn't know since I cannot compare the two. They found that there were about 5-6 more kidney stones, but told me to just drink lots of fluids, and sent me on my way. Back to Saturday night, I was pretty sure it was another kidney stone, but why go to the hospital & pay a great sum of money for them to tell me that. To sum it up, I made it through the night and once I got up and was walking around, I felt fine.

So Saturday, Micah and I grabbed some breakfast at a little cafe. We split quiche, a blueberry croissant, and a latte (which I spilled a 1/4 of on myself!) Then, we trudged through the snowy slush, hopped on the light rail, and made our way to Temple Square. The square marks the place where Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers settled back in 1847. Two sisters currently on their mission gave us a riveting tour of some of the buildings on the property. It was informative, and occasionally awkward, like when they asked us, "What do you give 100% to in your life?" and then of course came the shpeal on receiving some wonderfully crafted dvds on how we can become mormon. We politely (perhaps awkwardly as well) declined.

(the Salt Lake City Temple)

The buildings in the square are rather impressive, especially given the time period in which they were constructed. The tabernacle building (where the tabernacle choir sings) is a dome shape, built specifically for sound quality, so that a person in the back can perfectly hear what the speaker in the front is saying withOUT a microphone.

(Tabernacle building)

The Assembly Hall is also quite ornate. It houses an original pipe organ and the "marble" pillars and "oak" benches are all made out of pine wood, but painted to resemble what would be considered more beautiful or elaborate.

(Assembly Hall)

(the "oak" benches)

(the "marble" pillars)

After the tour, Micah and I headed to the Family History Library, where you can research to your heart's content. We stayed there for quite some time. The investigator inside me was fueled by lengthy census data, birth/marriage/death records, military registration forms, and naturalization papers.

At night, Temple Square is illuminated with millions of glittering Christmas lights.

(Assembly Hall)

(The Temple)

And after a long day of Mormon and family history, all I wanted was to sleep sweet dreams. But, my kidney stones would have none of that. The excruciating pain awoke once again, but thankfully, I survived the night. And, in the morning I was feeling somewhat better. We had a lazy brunch at Market Street Grill. We talked and discussed life and religion and faith. That conversation is probably my favorite memory from our trip, because it was genuine and relaxed and reeling with passion and confusion all at the same time.

We didn't do much for the rest of the day. Come to find out, SLC pretty much closes down on Sundays and so there was really nothing we could do. Not to mention it looked like we were inside a snow globe with all the wintery storm that plowed through. So, we watched t.v. in our little hotel room with the comfiest bed in the world. For dinner, we ventured no further then the Squatter's Pub right across the street, but quickly retreated back to the warmth and comfort of our hotel room.

(Peanut butter mouse pie with oreo crust)

It may not have been the ideal weekend getaway, what with not getting one good night's sleep, but it was memorable just the same!

(The only picture of the two of us from the weekend. Here we are being "serious" in one of the hotel's sitting rooms.)

And in case your wondering, yes, I did go to the doctor once we got back to Denver. And, I am feeling much better. And, hopefully with the tests they did, they'll be able to figure out how I can prevent having a repeat of this past weekend.