My Sunday Six birthday and anniversary smiles

I am smiling today because it is my Johnny's birthday.

I am heads over heels in love with this boy.

He is a wonderful grandson.
He brings Grampy and me many smiles.
We love you Johnny!
Happy Birthday!!
...
I am also smiling as I think about our last anniversary.

I would like to share our anniversary story with you.

It is about time...in fact I am way overdue...but better late than never.

After all, our 44th anniversary was July 9th...well I am only two months late. I want to share our wonderful Canadian cruise with you too. That was in May...even longer ago.... but it will have to wait until another week. Our anniversary was full of smiles...here is why...
...

When I am with John I feel like I am on top of the world.

Actually, for our anniversary, I really was.

We took the tram from Palm Springs up the mountain to

Mount San Jacinto State Park.

It was beautiful there. ... a lovely place to spend the day...

and... ...it was even more fun for us because our dear friends
Silvija and Ron went with us.
Ron was away on a business trip during their anniversary ...
...so...
we girls decided it would be fun to get together and get our guys away from home
for a double celebration.
(How could they say no to the two of us???)
We took the revolving tram up the steep mountain side.

Up we went....

higher and higher

Until we really were on the top of the world.
...

While we were up there we had a good meal in their pretty sky high restaurant .
It was all very nice. We all hated to come back down to earth.

But, when we were back down to earth....we were staying in the beautiful Westin Resort.
This is a time share owned by Sil and Ron.

They invited us to use it too.

Boy, did John luck out on that one....it was nicer than any hotel we would have paid to stay in.

Silvija made us a wonderful anniversary breakfast.

Do any of you remember our Big Mac breakfast story from last year when we stayed at the Sheraton? Well, Sil made sure that didn't happen again.
She also was our personal photographer.
We had such a good time.
...
The 9th of July fell on a Thursday...which is the day John and I serve in the Temple.

Redlands is about an hour from Palm Springs which is about the same as the distance to the temple from our home.
It was an easy drive for us to get the temple Thurs. afternoon.
It was nice spending our anniversary in the House of the Lord.
We took time out from our work assignments to sit together

...and reflect on our lives together

...and

the sacred marriage covenant we had made in the temple 44 years earlier.
It was a special evening for us.

Back at the resort Sil and I enjoyed the beautiful pools....

Since we both have pools at home, our hubbies did not find the pools as inviting as we girls did....but they were happy for us to splash around...so we did....

... while they worked on their computers back in our rooms...

(the picture above is our rooms..they were really nice)

...or they napped???

Romantic huh!!!

Oh well, Sil and I both knew that if we let our "old men" rest a bit they couldn't complain about being too tired to take us out at night. (See you learn these things through the years of marriage.)
...

All too soon our Anniversary get-away came to an end.
Saturday was our last day because we all had to be back home early on Sunday for church.

...

It is not easy for us girls to get our hard working guys away from home to relax and play.
We knew that we needed to plan a final activity that they would really enjoy.
So, we took them to the Aircraft museum.

...

Ron is a retired Marine Colonel. He was a pilot during the Vietnam era.

We got to look at the plane he flew. (I forgot it's name...sorry...it is a one man fighter plane???)
He told us a lot about military aircraft that we did not know before.
It was very interesting.

We enjoyed looking at the old planes.

We got to go through this big one...is it a B17???

Our guide was very informative.

He told us all sorts of stories about this plane.
He seemed to really know what he was talking about.

And it is no wonder... He was it's pilot back in WWII..he flew it on 55 missions.

(Isn't he just the cutest thing! He was 23 in the picture below.)

We were really please that we got to meet him ... and we were in awe of the service he gave for our country.

We also enjoyed looking at the old cars that they had in the museum.

We stayed there for hours and hated to leave.
Sil and I enjoyed the day looking at all the exhibits but we had even more fun watching our hubbies enjoying themselves.

...
Well that is how we celebrated our anniversary this year.
It may not seem that exciting to you but it was perfect for us.
John and I are thankful for the 44 years of marriage we have shared

and for the family we are blessed to have.

We love being retired together.

We do not take these blessings or this time for granted.

You can see why memories of our anniversary fill me with smiles.

I hope that you are smiling too.

Have a good week.

Hugs, Lura