Date Night | Chihuly In The Desert

Apr 10, 2014

Fact: Bruce and I never really dated.

One day I'll have to type out our love story, but the short version is, we met when he was on his mission. When he got home from his mission, we got in touch and eventually started talking on the phone a LOT. After a few months of talking on the phone for hours each night, he decided to fly up to Utah and visit me. By the end of the five day visit, we were engaged, two weeks later I moved down to Arizona to be near him and 2 months later we were married in the Mesa Arizona temple. And {almost} nine years later, we are still going strong. Despite our lack of dating. 

After we got married, we never really made dating each other a priority. Sure, we'd do things together, but actual dates were few and far between. Last Valentine's Day, I decided that had to change. I felt inspired by the dating posts of a favourite blogger and I put together a year of date nights for Bruce. 12 envelopes with a handwritten note and a preplanned date inside each one. We had so much fun working our way through the envelopes and for the first time ever, actually dating each other. The gift was such a success that I repeated it again this year.


This month, our envelope held two tickets to the Chihuly in the Desert exhibit at our local botanical garden. Neither of us had ever visited the garden, and neither of us really knew what Chihuly meant. Now we are "experts" on both.

The botanical garden itself is absolutely lovely. I am going to have to look up their photography policy because I would LOVE to do my girls birthday photo sessions there at some point. It really is amazing how beautiful the desert can be.



Then there was the addition of the Chihuly exhibit. Oh. My. Goodness. Going in, I had no idea just what Chihuly meant, so in case you are like me, I'll explain! Dale Chihuly is an American artist who specializes in HUGE blown glass sculptures and installations. They are bright, vivid colours and did I mention they are huge!? Bruce and I enjoyed looking at each of the Chihuly pieces and picking our own favourites as well as deciding which ones we thought each of the children would have liked best. It was a beautiful exhibit and we both walked away saying we'd love to go again sometime, and take the wee ones with us.



My favourite piece... it was absolutely magnificent and the colours really popped against the blue sky and green foliage

We decided this would have been Man Cub's favourite... not because he'd care for the piece necessarily, he'd just be all about the water!

This piece was incredible... each piece was moving independent of the others. I can't imagine they were floating, so I'm not quite sure how they were moving around. It was so calming to watch

Bruce's favourite... the pictures just don't do it justice. This piece was gigantic

Our top pick for Beebs... she loves purple, and she loved this picture when we showed it to her


Bruce really wanted to get a picture of me with "blue hair", so I obliged Ü


We picked this one for Sunshine... and we were right! After showing her all the different pictures, she decided this was her favourite.

And a couple of iPhone photos, to prove we were there together Ü




We ended our date with a stop at our favourite deli for hot pastrami sandwiches, followed by stops at two different Paradise Bakeries looking for chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Then it was back home so I could relieve our babysitters and Bruce could head to work. But the final consensus- Chihuly in the Desert makes for a great date night.

2 comments:

  1. Wow! That place looks cool. I'd never heard of it before! I really need to get on board with the year of dates.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My husband and I never really did either! But this place looks awesome! I love glass art!

    ReplyDelete

 
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