A few months ago as I was looking through our calendar, I noticed something written on two days in August. I looked closer as it wasn't my handwriting and it said, "Date Weekend." I quickly looked at Cliff and excitedly said, "What's this?" He quickly and slyly replied, "What? I don't know what you're talking about. Who wrote that?" :0) Turns out, he planned a night away for us and also planned the childcare. As badly as I wanted to know where we were going, it was fun to experience the anticipation of not knowing.
We took off Friday morning after dropping off the kids with Cliff's mom. From there we went south. We went past Drain, Rice Hill, Roseburg and eventually took the exit with the massive sign advertising Seven Feathers. As we took the exit I secretly hoped we were going there rather than just using a bathroom. Sure enough, he pulled into the parking lot. Turns out, he won a free night in the hotel when he was there for training back in January. I don't know how in the world he kept it from me this long but he did. He also brought all our spare change, I LOVE the penny slots! :0)
We had lunch and he let me play the slots for a little while but said we had to leave in a couple hours. Of course I was curious to see where we were going because I thought this was the surprise. We left the casino and headed back north on I-5. He told me we were looking for Starlight Theater and hoped we would see it from I-5. Sure enough, there it was. An old, somewhat worn down drive-in theater. Before we had left town he told me that I needed to wear shoes comfortable enough for me to walk a bit in. As we took the exit to the theater I thought, "It is hours before dark when we could see a movie and this place is in the middle of nowhere. I didn't bring shoes to hike that mountain in, just comfy sandals." As I was fiddling with my earrings and looking in the mirror, I missed all the signs that said, "Shuttle Parking." So we parked and got out and Cliff took off walking. I had NO idea what was going on. There were other cars there though but no people. We walked to this stop sign out in the middle of nowhere where there were a few other people standing. It was so strange. Not too long later though, a school bus pulls up - I still have no clue what's going on.
The bus starts going north on I-5 and before long I can see the Douglas County Fairgrounds (which we had passed going south earlier on the way to the casino and I had actually hoped we would end up taking that exit and going to the fair.) The bus dropped us off and Cliff told me we had our tickets waiting inside as he had purchased them online. Once we get inside, the woman working the counter says, "You two must have tickets for the concert." I said, "Concert? What concert? Are we seeing a concert???!!!" I was so excited. The woman felt so incredibly bad that I didn't know and she ruined the surprise. We were there to see Blake Shelton in concert.
Since we had a few hours before the concert started, we spent the afternoon walking around looking at the many, many booths and many, many animals. It was so much fun. We rode the scrambler, had cotton candy (me) and ice cream (Cliff). They also had a dock dog competition going on so we watched that for a bit. Then it was time for the concert.
Blake Shelton was a great performer and we had such a good time. Our seats were excellent, I think it was the fourth row that we were in. I screamed so much my throat hurt afterward.
After the concert we wandered around a little more since it seemed like a whole new world once it was dark and all the lights were on. We stopped at one of those little photo booths and I convinced Cliff to take pictures with me, I had always wanted to try that.
Eventually we got our last treat, a fri-jo and headed back to the hotel. There had been entertainment in the pub that night that we missed but there were still a lot of people around so we went in and had some onion rings (yeah, I know - more bad food) and even danced a little.
It was an amazing weekend with my wonderfully sweet husband who took me out of town for no reason at all other than to have some time with each other. He's so good to me!!!
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