11th Anniversary

This past Saturday was our 11th wedding anniversary.  I can't believe how quickly time hast past since we first said I do.  God truly has blessed me with a wonderful man.  He is my best friend and he knows me better that anyone.  All he has to do is look at me and know what I want.  He says I have different looks for when I'm hungry, tired, etc.  Since I had to work all weekend we didn't have a lot of time to celebrate.  So Saturday after I got off from work we went out to dinner at James at the Mill.  After dinner we headed home to change to go to the Natural's game.  Chris got tickets for us because it was Star Wars night.  We sat with our pastor and his wife and talked the night away.  The game was followed up with fireworks.  It was a very nice anniversary and I look forward to spending many more amazing years together!

This is one of my favorite photos!

I couldn't pass up having my picture taken with some Star Wars characters.

A long time ago

12 years ago Chris and I went on our first date.  I can't believe how quickly time has passed.  It seems like just yesterday Chris was meeting me at the library with his best friend, Frank.  My sister also came along with us to dinner at Applebee's before we all went to Barnhill Arena to watch the 3 Doors Down Concert.  God has truly blessed me with a wonderful husband and best friend.  Too many more wonderful years together!

Our first date 2001.  We looked like babies then.

Day 11 Vow Renewal and Kandern

Several months ago Chris and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary.  I told Chris that I wanted to renew our vows when we went to Germany since this was really our anniversary trip to ourselves.  So we asked Valerie and Jonathan about it and they found the perfect location to have it and someone to perform the ceremony.  We renewed our vows on top of one of the hills that overlook Kandern, Germany.  It was a pretty steep hike up the hill and thankfully the rain held off during the whole ceremony and the hike up and down the hill.  Before the ceremony Valerie took me to one of the local flower shops to get a bouquet.  The flower shops in Germany are totally different than the ones that we have in the United States.  You tell them a price of what you want to spend and then they make the arrangement based on that.  They did a great job putting together the bouquet; I wish I would have been able to take it with me.  But I took tons of pictures of it.  After that we drove up to the hill and started making our trek up the hill.  I had to wear flats to get up there but we all thankfully made it!  Pastor Art Mellie performed the ceremony and Jonathan and Valerie were the photographers.  It was a simple ceremony but the most heartfelt part was when we spoke to each other.  I thank God for Chris every day and he's my best friend.  I don't know what I'd do without him and I know that Chris feels the same way about me.  I liked when Pastor Mellie said that this was a mile marker in our marriage that we could look back on and hopefully we'll able to enjoy another 50+ years together.  Thankfully Jonathan, Art and Valerie took a ton of photos so everyone who wasn't there gets to enjoy.  Plus we didn't get really good photos of our wedding 10 years ago.

I love this one!  If you can laugh about anything you'll have a great marriage.

After the ceremony we headed back to their house to change and then they took us on a tour of Black Forrest Academy.  We were surprised at how big the campus actually was.  I figured that all of the dorms would be next to the school but they are spread out all over town.  We wanted to be able to sit in on a class to see how the teachers and students interact but everyone was at lunch.  So we headed over to the local Asian restaurant called Asia Wok.  After going almost two weeks without Asian food it was a nice treat especially since it was really good!  When we finished up with lunch we meet Pastor Mellie who dropped off some photos from the ceremony and to give us a document for our vow renewal.  Then we headed back to the school to sit in on a Holocaust video.  The teacher was talking to the students about a field trip and if they were good they would stop at McDonald's as a treat.  These students rarely ever get to enjoy American food so they erupted in shouts when they heard this.  After watching the video we headed back to their house to relax.  This was one of the few times during our whole vacation where we weren't going 90 miles an hour.  They took us to a really nice local restaurant called Funfschilling.  It was interesting trying to order off a menu all in German but thankfully they had an English menu. Valerie and Jonathan didn't know that there was an English menu!  We finished up dinner and headed back to the house.

Anniversary Fun

Chris and I decided to go out to a really nice restaurant to celebrate our wedding anniversary.  We decided to go back to Vetro 1925.  We had gone a few months ago and the food was amazing.  The food and service were even better this time around.  They even took off our dessert since it was our anniversary.  I didn't get a photo of our dessert because it was so good we ate it all!

After dinner we walked around the square in Fayetteville.  It was such a beautiful night for a walk and thankfully some really nice people stopped and took some photos of us.

10 years ago

10 years ago today I married my best friend Chris!  I can't believe how quickly 10 years has gone by.  I am so blessed to call him my husband.  He knows me so well.  He says that I always have a different look for when I'm hungry, upset, tired and so on.  He can read me like a book!  The last 10 years have been the best and I'm looking forward to spending many many many more years together with him making new memories together.  Happy anniversary Chris I love you more each day.  Thank you for being a wonderful husband and for always being there for me.  God has truly blessed me with you! 

Here are some photos from our wedding.  We didn't get that many photos from our wedding and back then digital photography really wasn't around.  Many people don't know this but we would really like to renew our vows when we're in Europe.  Maybe then we'll get some really good photos and some video since our wedding video/DVD are missing.

The day of our wedding it was really windy and during our unity candle lighting my veil blew off! It also took us a really long time to get the candle lit but eventually we got it to stay.

Our parents

Our wedding party

Two weeks away

In two weeks is our 10 year wedding anniversary!  I can't believe how quickly 10 years has gone by!!  Chris decided to go ahead and give me my anniversary present early since he knew that it would take awhile for it to get done.  For years I have wanted to redo my wedding set but we could never really afford to do it.  When we got married we were broke college kids who could only afford simple gold bands.  I've always wanted a diamond anniversary band and at our 5 year anniversary I looked at them but decided to wait until our 10th.  Chris wanted to surprise me with one this year but he thought that it would probably be a good idea if he let me pick it out.  He didn't realize just how big a disaster this would turn into!!  I made him go jewelry shopping every day for a week until I finally decided on the ones that I wanted.  I wanted a anniversary band that would go with my engagement ring which the diamond is from Chris's great grandmother (or is it great great grandmother).  So I decided on getting one with a milgrain finish which has more of an antique look to it. But when I went to look at them it didn't look right with just one.  After talking with the the sales girl we decided that it would be pretty if I got two of the bands in white gold and then my wedding set would be two toned.  I just couldn't make myself buy it right then so I shopped around.  This was the ring that I looked at 5 years earlier and couldn't make Chris buy it then.  I'm a very frugal person and I just had a hard time spending that kind of money.  I had finally narrowed it down between two places one had a cheaper ring with bigger carats and the other one had the ring that I really loved.  I spent a hour and a half going back and forth between the two places. 

The cheaper ring.

The more expensive ring.

In the end I just couldn't make myself love the cheaper one and it just didn't sparkle like the more expensive one.  I knew if I would have gone with the cheaper one I would have regretted it.  Chris was so nice during the whole thing the only thing he told me was to get the ones that I really wanted plus I think he was ready for it all to be over with!  I absolutely love how it all turned out.  I've gotten tons of compliments on it already and I wouldn't change anything about it.  I love you so much Chris and thank you so much for my anniversary present, you are absolutely the best!!

It's really hard to get a really good photo of how it looks.  It sparks so much in person!! I suppose if I was using a regular camera and not my iPhone I'd get a better photo!