If you were a castle, I'd be your moat, And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.

A year ago, we were here:

On August 9, 2008, Jeff and I were married in the Los Angeles temple. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day, but we were sure relieved when it was over. We were just extremely grateful to finally, officially, belong to each other. Even though we were only engaged for four months, we thought our wedding day could not come soon enough!

And here we are now:

Don't mind Jeff in this picture; he's very excited. For our 1st anniversary, Jeff planned a surprise trip for us. Since today is our anniversary, we had the whole weekend to celebrate. All I knew was that we were leaving on Saturday morning and that I would need pajamas and a change of clothes. This got me VERY excited. I used to think that I was the type of person who doesn't like surprises. I think I was wrong.

As we were getting ready to leave the apartment, Jeff grabbed our cooler and threw some ice in it. Next, we headed off to get a Jamba (buy one, get one FREE) for breakfast and also made a trip into the grocery store to buy some sandwiches and other lunch necessities. Okay, so I'm thinking "We're packing a lunch, we have a change of clothes, and he told me to dress comfortable, like we would be walking 18 holes of golf...hmmmm, where are we going?!"

Still clueless, we got on the highway. We finally got to Island Park. I thought this was where we were going to stay, but we sped past. And the next stop after that? YELLOWSTONE!

We drove to the park entrance and started our journey. I was VERY excited! I had been to the park before, but I was really little. The only thing I remember about that trip was that I think my Grandpa and Grandma Hatch were with us, and that I got a souvenir key chain with Old Faithful on it.

We choose to see Old Faithful first. A lot of people were already gathered around the eruption site, so we took our seats too. We waited about 45 minutes to see it go off. After that, we took a walk around the area to look at more geysers. We saw some really neat things. I really liked the Riverside geyser which we walked past just as it was erupting.

We were most excited to see Morning Glory. This is what it is supposed to look like:

Unfortunately, because people are crappy, it now looks like this:

The reason for the color change is because people have polluted the geyser by throwing coins, trash, and other junk into it, causing a blockage of the underground water reservoir. In better times, the water was SO hot that it killed all living organisms, all bacteria, so the water would look bright blue. Now, because the hot water cannot get through the blockage, it cannot kill the bacteria in the above pool of water, causing a greenish blue color as a result.

We were pretty sad about it. And even though the park service people have figured out what has caused the change, it will take millions of years for Morning Glory to regain its brilliance.

On a happier note, after we made our way around for a couple of hours, we returned to Old Faithful on our way back to the car, and we got to see it erupt a second time without having to sit and wait! We were stoked :)

We ate our packed lunch in the car and drove around the south loop of the park. Jeff told me that we weren't going to be doing anymore walking that day. Since he told me before we left that we would be walking, I choose to wear my vans with ankle socks. For some weird reason, my socks kept slinking down, so I just took them off. Bad choice. I ended up with some serious blisters. By the time we made it back to the car, I was limping pretty good, but I'm really tough, so I didn't give up or cry or let those blisters ruin my adventure with my Sweetie. Yeah, that's right. I did, however, switch out my vans for some flippy-floppies instead ;)

We were lucky to get back to the car when we did because about a half-hour into our drive around the loop, it started to rain and hail. We didn't mind. We even got stuck in traffic a couple of times because everyone wanted to see the wildlife just grazing in the fields surrounding the road. We just talked and sang to each other to pass the time. We got to see a lot of bison and mule deer. No moose and no bears though. Dang it.

Here are a few photos from the day:

Old Faithful

Just walking through the park

Riverside geyser

After our car ride, we went back to the hotel and checked in. Then we were off to tour the town and get some BBQ. We had a great time just being together. Since I started my new job, we don't get to spend NEARLY as much time together, so it was really great to spend some time just the two of us.

I'm so happy that I married such a wonderful husband who loves me. Here's to year #2!