Mid-life "Celebration" Road Trip

I don't know about your guys, but my guys are car guys.  Personally, I don't really care about cars that much.  For the most part, I just want something that can reliably get me where I want to go.  But that's not true for my cute husband!  Cars mean much more to him!  And ever since this:

. . . he has wanted Eddie Murphy's car in a big way.  Needless to say, this dream has been out of reach for most of his life.  But now, this car is considered "vintage" and sells for less than a new Honda Civic.  And Nathan got a little bug in his bonnet about this car recently, which led to a fun adventure that we took in early November!

Lest ye think this "bug" was the result of a mid-life crisis or something, let me set your mind at ease.  It probably started when he got to drive his old buddy James Abbott's convertible Porsche while he was on a business trip in Utah (so maybe we have James' mid-life crisis to thank? haha!).  But a few months ago Nathan started shopping for his long-time dream car.  They are not exactly easy to find at your local Mercedes dealer.

He searched online and found something he really liked in North Carolina.  He showed it to me, but I wasn't really behind the idea.  But after some discussion, he convinced me that since we could pay for it without financing, and that we could keep it in Utah for his use on business trips there (we have no place here to store it!), I was a little more supportive of it.  When he found that the one in North Carolina had been sold, he was disappointed.  I told him that next time, he should look for one in Phoenix, AZ, because at least it would be warm if we decided to go pick it up!

Well, I do believe he took that as a big "green light!"  Thus began our mid-life "celebration" (not crisis) adventure in which we were able to make one of Nate's lifelong dreams come true.

He did indeed find just the car he wanted in Phoenix.  At the price he wanted to pay.  Imagine that!  It was a red 1987 Mercedes 560SL convertible.  He negotiated a deal on it and told the dealer that we would come to Phoenix to pick it up over the first weekend in November.

We didn't have much time to take a road trip, so we came up with a cray-cray-crazy plan that made for a big weekend on the highways for our family.  On Friday morning, after seminary, we loaded up the kids in the car and drove from our home in Colorado to Nana's house in Bountiful, UT.  We didn't arrive until about 9pm.  We put the kids in bed and went to meet up with my friend Jen to pick up some food storage that she was keeping for us in SLC.  We then went back to Bountiful to sleep until 4:30am, when we got up, left our kids asleep at Nana's, and went to the airport to catch a plane to Phoenix.

We landed in Phoenix, where Donna and Meili picked us up and drove us to the dealer selling the car.  Then, after a short visit to Donna's new house, we got in Nate's fancy new car to drive back to our kids in Utah (who were hanging out with Nana and attending Tabitha's baptism during the day).  Nate and I were on the road for 12 hours, arriving back in Bountiful at about midnight when everyone else was already asleep.

In the morning, we woke up with our kids and started packing to return to Denver!  Nate took everyone for rides in his super cool new car, then he left it in Nana's garage, and we spent another full day on the road driving home.  Phewsh!  My hips were SO sore from sitting in a car that long for 3 days straight.  Haha!  But, wow, it was so fun!  The kids had a great time visiting at Nana's house, and even helped provide the music for the baptism.  And Nate and I got to spend 3 full days together, and for much of it we were out of cell phone range (translation: he wasn't working!).  It was exhausting and exciting all at once.

Here are pictures from our super fun trip!

Here it is!  Although it is a convertible, it has a hard top, which of course we could not take off for our long trip back to Utah.  That will have to wait until summer! :)

Another picture of us showing off the new wheels.  This was taken in front of Donna's new house in Gilbert, AZ.  Truth is, I really had fun with Nate in his new car, but I especially LOVED seeing Donna's new house!  It is just gorgeous!  Plus, we love their family so it was great to have a short visit while we were there.

A better view of the car.

Another one. :)

This was a HUGE highlight of our trip!  The last time that Nathan and I had driven from Phoenix to Utah together was on March 2, 1999, just after Nate had met my parents "officially" and had made the formal request of my Dad to marry me.  It was in the middle of that road trip that we stopped, and on a foot bridge overlooking a part of the north rim of the Grand Canyon, he got on one knee and asked me to marry him!  Such a momentous occasion!  We hoped that on this trip, we would be able to stop there again.  The only problem was that neither of us could remember exactly where it was.  But Nate was determined that we would find it.  I was not quite as sure.  But we took a turn-off that seemed right to both of us.  It was much longer than we remembered, however, and I was just about to declare that we must have taken a wrong turn, when there it was in front of us!  The very parking lot, the very bridge, the very spot we had been in almost 17 years ago.  So, yes!  We stopped again!  And this time I took some pictures to help us remember where it was.  This is a picture of Nate standing by the sign that is at the entrance to the foot bridge.

I didn't remember this at all, but it was called the Navajo Bridge.  It is over a branch of the North Rim, by Marble Canyon in Arizona.  So, it's official, we got engaged in Arizona!

Overlooking the canyon.

This is our romantic reenactment of the actual event.  This time, we were there much later in the day, as you can see by the lighting.  It was just before sunset in this photo.  And what he actually said to me when he proposed in this spot in 1999 was, "Will you be my wife for eternity?"  Now, that's a serious proposal!  But it was exactly the perfect way to say it, because it meant that from the start, we meant this to last forever and lead to the highest possible glory for the family we would establish.  I got this one right, friends!

This photo was taken on the day we got engaged at the same foot bridge.  This was before we could take selfies with an iPhone.  We had been alone on the bridge when he made the proposal, but soon after we were joined by an older couple who were taking a trip to celebrate 50 years of marriage.  Isn't that an excellent omen?  And they were the ones who took this photo of us.  Isn't that amazing?  And don't laugh at my mom jeans and Nate's shoes.  True love makes you completely blind to fashion mistakes!  What a happy memory...which has led to all of the greatest blessings of life for us.  Marriage is AWESOME!