Happy Aniversary Husband!!!

Happy Anniversary to my favorite guy, who also happens to be my awesome husband! ;) 

We've been together for 11 years, and married now for 6!!! Yes, we were high school sweet hearts. *sigh* *aw* I know, I know. Most of you already know our story....
What many do not know is the negative ups and downs we've had. We have been through A LOT! Most of which I won't share at this time, but aside from the negatives...
we went to high school, ran cross country and track, and played basketball together, we took as many of the same classes as we could, and participated in lots of the same extracurricular activities, including {sports}, drama, and Worship Teams. Our entire engagement was spent living in different states (me in Oregon and he in Arizona), which is probably why it only lasted 5 months. Once we married, we went on an amazing cruise through Mexico, and the day we returned, Sean left for Egypt for a month. Our first "home" together was his barracks room, where we shared a twin size bed, and since I wasn't actually suppose to be there, I ended up having to hide in the closet a time or two (with all of my bags) for inspections. HAH!! That only lasted a week or so until we found our first apartment. 
We've lived in 3 different states (with 5 different addresses!), been through two deployments and countless weeks of separations, loved and lost a lot of friends and family, had two dogs, one beautiful daughter, and another on the way, and visited some really neat places (mostly in the Southeast corner of America!). 

How we've celebrated our day~

Year 1 - Our first anniversary was awesome. We got super dressed up, and went to one of the nicer restaurants in Atlanta. We were only 20 and 21 years old, and when we got there, we realized there was a high school having some sort of fancy social gathering, and we completely blended in. HAHAHA! Thankfully, Sean had already made reservations, AND had them decorate our table with flower petals, candles, and a beautiful bouquet of flowers (which, long story short, one of the hostesses ended up walking down the street to pick up for him!). They also served me a glass of wine without question (oooh! sneaky!), and I ate Lamb Chops (which were AMAZING) for the first time. Total. Success.

Year 2 - Our second anniversary was....interesting. We picked a different fancy restaurant in Atlanta. One that was known for spotting "stars" or famous people. We were late. Got stuck in traffic, so we were REALLY late. Got lost, so we were really REALLY late. And somehow they still managed to find us a seat. Whew! Because there were literally like no seats left... It was an underground (literally!) restaurant, and the host and all the staff were super dressy, and fancy and proper....We were seated maybe a foot and a half away from the tables on either side of us, but across from one another (awkward!) and since we could practically hear the people next to us chewing their food, AND we felt totally out of place and awkward (we were by far the youngest and least "classy" people there), our conversation was mostly in whispers about where to put our napkins, and which fork to use. HAHA! Probably the highlight of the meal was when I bit into a huge piece of gristle (grizzle?) FAT on the meat, and gagged. I would honestly normally (at that point in my life) have spit it out! But Sean was looking at me, wide eyed, like "do NOT spit that out into your cloth napkin with these goobers 2 feet away from us!" So, I gagged a little more, took a big chug of wine and swallowed that nastiness. And proceeded to not eat the rest of my very expensive lamb chop. I don't think I've had lamb since.....and the whole way home we laughed about how awkward that was. Good food though! Minus that lamb ;)

Year 3, we were in different countries, and it was the hardest day of the whole deployment for me! I don't really know why. He was gone for his birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday, valentines day....everything, but our anniversary is the one day just for US, and we were so far apart.
 I went in to work, walked through the classroom door, and burst into tears. I proceeded to cry for most of the day, and literally only one other employee had any sort of military experience (her dad was Army), and she was the only one who really understood. I can't really remember if we got to talk or skype that day, but I know he did have beautiful flowers delivered to me at work (MORE tears!). And I got about 76352783 hugs from my 4 and 5 year olds :) I really should have pulled it together for them, but....I didn't do very well. They were sweet.

Year 4, we were in South Carolina and I was 7 months pregnant with Annabelle. We found a nice restaurant in Columbia (about 40 minutes from where we were stationed), and had a great time. Something about the previous 3 years, plus being pregnant, and being in a chill environment made the night so pleasant. I remember totally enjoying it, and the food was delicious. I think I even took a picture of Sean's giant fish, and my pork chop. 

And, yes. I remember what we ate on our anniversaries for the last 6 years! hahaha Don't hate. It's just what we do; once a year we get dressed up and go to a fancy place for amazing food. :)
  
Last year {year 5}, I had this grand idea that we would do something amazing and extraordinary. Year 5 is a big deal, and this would be our first year as parents, in a new state, and Annabelle was finally old enough to be babysat for a little while. BUT, there was SO much going on right then. We had basically just moved to Alabama (First week of august), which was followed by 6 weeks of WOCS, and AB and I traveling, and he had literally JUST graduated from WOCS a week before our anniversary. So....he said I would need to be the one to plan it. I was all for it! Except.....I didn't really know anyone, so I was picking random babysitters (which I was NOT comfortable with!), I didn't know the area, so I had no idea what to do or where to go, and I really didn't have much time to plan, and he didn't have time to actually go anywhere (like the beach). Sooooo, we ended up hiring a new babysitter, and making sort of a fluid plan to go...somewhere...on this one night. Except, then the babysitter got sick, and of course I didn't have a back up, and since "somewhere" wasn't an actual place, we went out (with the baby) driving to just find a place to eat. We ended up at Hardee's (that's Carl's Jr. for all you NWerners!), and then stopped at the gas station for a gallon of ice cream and candy bars! hahaha! We rented a movie, put the baby to bed, and had a quiet night in. Definitely not what I had in mind, but it was really fun, and the day wasn't ruined because we were together :)
We also took Annabelle to the Daycare Center for a couple of hours that weekend, and went on a little golfing date. That was really fun!
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This year has been a very unique challenge with Sean in Flight School. Our marriage has been pushed, pulled and challenged in ways we never imagined, but it has grown us so much, and brought us closer to God, and closer together - a real blessing!!! It's also pretty cool that in a few more weeks I'll be married to a Pilot! And HE will be married to an awesome stay-at-home-mother of TWO (haha)! ;) 

We hoped to make it to the beach for our Anniversary weekend, but we decided to have a yard sale on Saturday morning. Then, there was a Tropical Storm at the coast (which actually turned into nothing but rain on Sunday), so we had to cancel our beach plans :/ Maybe we'll get down there one more time before we move. Hey! The new baby should get a chance to visit one of the prettiest coasts in America too! ;) 

We had fun at the yard sale actually, and got to hang out with all of our neighbor friends, while the kids played. Then, after a long nap, we went out for a nice Anniversary dinner! 

This time, year 6, I'm 8 months (7 months? 31 weeks) pregnant with baby girl number 2, and I've already explained our failed beach plans. 
 We chose the nicest restaurant in town, The Rawls, which we weren't quite giving our highest expectations to, BUT it was fantastic! So glad we went. Funny HOW different the environment was from the fancy Atlanta restaurants we've experienced (i.e. at 6 pm we were one of only two tables seated, the hostess was personally acquainted with another customer, the chef came out to speak with us 2 or 3 times, and was wearing an Alabama under armor sweat band (hah!)) Definitely more of a small town feel! It was obvious we hadn't had fancy food in quite some time when we were practically blown away by the sweet tastiness of the butter for our bread! HAH! Everything that followed was equally as tasty. We chose fried green tomatoes for our appetizer because.....we're in Alabama! We had to ;) They were superb! 

In the midst of Flight School, a government shut down, a second child on the way, knowing that we'll be living in a different state in less than 3 months, but no idea where...it was nice to quiet down and just relax together, and focus on each other. Aaaaand get dressed up and go out ;) I wish we could do that more often. I have a pretty cool guy! 


I love you hubby!!! Happy anniversary! Maybe next year we'll be sipping drinks on a beach in Hawaii!! Or perhaps we'll be in Nashville listening to some country music. Orrrrrrr maybe it will be hot cocoa in Alaska. Wherever we will be, I'm glad that I'll be with YOU, my LOVE.  xoxoxo