In an effort to push past my negative emotions, I’m moving on to something happier. Also just for those of you keeping track – all the pictures featured in blog entries from Yellow River Game Ranch to the one with Kye’s cute faces were edited in Adobe Lightroom
. I’m back to using Picasa now, but I’d love any insight you may have…did you prefer the Lightroom ones or the Picasas?
Anyway…
Every year for our wedding anniversary Zach and I plan a vacation. It’s convenient that we got married on Memorial Day weekend because that means our anniversary typically falls during that time and it’s already a long weekend 🙂 This year with Bermuda and Chelsi’s Wedding we opted to not go away together. I was pretty bummed because I really do love travel (shocker???). However we got back from the beach the morning of our anniversary (Sat May 28th) and dropped Kye off at my mom’s house. We had the whole afternoon and night to spend together and it was nice quality time.
We first ran errands. I know that seems lame, but it was NICE to casually take our time and not feel like we had to rush on a schedule (life with a child always feels rushed ya know it?). We went to Habitat for Humanity to look for some stuff for the house (and found some cool shutters we’re going to use as decor!). Then we went to Lemongrass Day Spa for a spa afternoon. Since we had money left over from Bermuda, I wanted to get a couples massage. However, times are tight right now financially for us (back surgery bills and higher house bills are really starting to have an effect on our lives…) and I understood when he didn’t think it was the best idea to do that. He did agree that I deserved a massage though (since he did golf in Bahamas) so we came to a compromise…I got a massage and we got a spa pedicure together. The massage was AWESOME. Like the best ever. Sadly, the pedicure was disappointing. It’s pricey and not nearly as good as Nails By Chris which is much cheaper. Oh well, lesson learned and we still enjoyed the time together!
After our spa treatments we went to Lowe’s to get more stuff for the house and it started to hit me how exhausted I was. Like mega tired. I know it was from the massage and the travel that day but whew! I was DONE. We were originally going to grab a bite to eat and rent a movie but decided instead to pick up take out and just watch our wedding video together.
We got Aligatu takeout for dinner (our fav Japanese restaurant in town!) and it was SOOO yummy. We asked for our regular order (no salad, double soup, no veges, double rice, extra shrimp sauce) and they gave it to us in a Bud Light carrier thing. This is the first and last time you’ll see a picture like this coming from us!!! It was super funny when Mom came over the next morning and I left the box sitting where she’d see it haha.
Every year we follow the traditional anniversary presents. It’s fun! For our 4th anniversary the gifts were: fruit or flowers and linen or silk. For the linen I got Zach an off-white linen blazer and for the fruit I found him some banana glow-in-the-dark boxers 🙂 We didn’t go all out in the gift department because we bought ourselves Galaxy Tablets as our anniversary gifts this year!
For my gift, Zach got me a tree! He took me to a local nursery and showed me the tree he picked out for me. He also picked out several bushes (one of which is that yellow one you said is tough to kill Rachael!). I was very sad when we had to cut down a beautiful pecan tree from our front yard (it was simply too close to the house) and I told Zach that I wanted to buy a BIG tree for the front yard. I’m so glad he got it for me as a gift because it makes it more meaningful and because it means I got to have it sooner than I would have if we waited for it to fit in the budget 🙂 He did an awesome job planting it and I love our little island in our front yard!
I think one of my favorite anniversary traditions is watching our wedding video. I love looking back at such a happy day and remembering the FUN that weekend brought! We had a BLAST celebrating our wedding all weekend long and it couldn’t have gone better. I’m SO thankful we bought a wedding video and it’s funny to watch it every year and every year see something new. Zach hates watching his vows (we said our own as well as the traditional ones) because he was crying pretty hard and he gets embarrassed watching it but we did notice this year (b/c DUH I MAKE him watch them!!!) that his dad (who married us!) was actually laughing during Zach’s vows (when he made his reference to his National Championship wins haha). It made us laugh and it was fun to find something that we never saw before 🙂
Someday I hope to have the time (phhh rrrrrright) to go back and at least tell you all about our special day/weekend since I didn’t blog back then (heck, did people blog at all back then???). Here’s one picture though of our first kiss as husband and wife to hold you over until that day comes!
I’m so blessed to have spent the last 4 years as Mrs. Parker and can’t wait for all the years to come!
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I really wish we did a wedding video. All I remember is standing there looking at Michael and whatever is in the pictures. Nothing really about the ceremony. I remember being stressed out though. 🙂
You might want to build up a dirt ring around the tree, the guy who planted ours said it is vital.
Emily — you look SO tiny in the pic of you and Zach at the spa! You always look thin, but you look especially skinny in that pic! Maybe it's because your hair is pulled back or maybe the pregnancy glow? Either way, you look fabulous!
That's a gorgeous picture and it sounds like a really wonderful weekend!
What an awesome way to celebrate your anniversary! Kirby and I love spending time together… even doing the simplest things like errands. 🙂
I've always heard it's the #1 regret brides have so we made sure to have one! I didn't remember a THING and was so thankful we had it as a reminder!!!
thanks for the tip….i'll pass it along to zach b/c,duh, i'm not doing it haha
Aw!!!!! THANK YOU!!!! when I first saw "you look so tiny" I assumed it was going to be in my wedding picture so that made the compliment even better!!!! I think all the massage oil helped? 😉
Hey great blog. You two look very happy together. Look like me and my wife.
thank you!!!!