an almost perfect night

To celebrate our anniversary '09 style, we dropped Halle off at hotel bell to spend the night with her favorite people while we spent the evening in Salt Lake City.

Our first stop was Kyoto, a Japanese restaurant with the best and most authentic food I have ever had. We sat at the counter and were served by the sweetest woman in a kimono. We talked about what we remembered from our wedding day while eating the best tempura and miso soup I have ever had.

We drove through the city holding hands and listening to songs that reminded us of each other. Our next stop was temple square to see the Christmas lights still on display. It was freezing but beautiful, and I found out just how big of a wimp Wes is about the cold.

After a lovely stroll around the temple grounds we stopped at the Salt Lake Roasting Company for completely divine hot chocolate. We have been coming to the SL Roasting Company around the holidays every year since we met. It holds so many fun memories for us and has the best seafood chowder around. We sat at our usual wooden table by the drafty purple windows on the top floor with all the maps. We drank our hot chocolate and looked at pictures of the highlights from the last three years starting with our wedding day. The people sipping coffee and using their laptops all around us faded as we laughed about our honeymoon, working at BYU laundry together, all the trips we took, graduating, being an elephant (aka pregnant), and our silly baby girl.

You could say it was the perfect night.

But to us, it was almost perfect.

It would have been perfect if we had Halle sitting in a high chair eating rice and making faces at the taste of the orange at Kyoto. It would have been perfect if we had been listening to "If you're happy and you know it" on Halle's children's cd and were watching her kick her legs in her car seat. It would have been perfect if we had bundled up Halle in her puffy coat and pink hat and gloves into her stroller while she said things like "whoa" and "tree" and "touch it" as we looked at all the lights. It would have been perfect if we went home and played "bah-nee-nee" (her way of saying let's go bounce on the couch). It would have been perfect if she kept asking for pretzels. It would have been perfect if we were chasing her around trying to get her jammies (or boots, as she calls them) on. It would have been perfect if we could kiss her goodnight and watch her get comfortable in her crib and roll onto her side to settle in for the night.

That would have been the perfect night.

But, every parent needs a night off right?