One Year Anniversary!!

     Today, May 22, is our one year wedding anniversary!! I can hardly believe that we have been married for one whole year! Wow, time really does fly when you're having fun! :) We have had so much fun all weekend celebrating and remembering that beautiful day.
     Blake sufficiently spoiled me, as he always manages to do! Our doorbell rang on Friday and to my surprise a beautiful bouquet of flowers had been delivered to me! This bouquet was made up of my absolute favorite flowers...white roses with light pink tips, and white lilies! These just happened to be the flowers that we had at our wedding, in the bouquets and the table center pieces, so it definitely got the wedding day memories rolling! Blake said that he had wanted them delivered early rather than right on our anniversary so that I could enjoy them longer in anticipation of our anniversary. I loved having them, and their scent, fill our house!!
     We decided that since our anniversary was on a Sunday this year we would celebrate it the day before. Blake knows how much I love surprises, so he never told me exactly what our anniversary plans were, he just wrote on the calendar on Saturday night from 5:00-on..."Don't make plans!!". This definitely helped build the suspense! Well, Saturday night came around and I was ready at 5:00, just like I was asked. A little earlier that day Blake asked me to pack a little "over-night bag", so I grew more and more curious as to where we were going to go! We got in the car and started heading up towards Salt Lake. We pulled up to the most beautiful old home in Downtown Salt Lake City that is called the Haxton Manor, a bed-and-breakfast!! It was such a fun surprise. Blake had already gone up there early to check us in, and he also took my beautiful anniversary flower bouquet up there so it was waiting in the room when we arrived.

     We had a little bit of time to kill before our dinner reservation, so we decided to exchange cards and presents. Blake opened his first...Since I guess the "official one year anniversary gift" is paper, I decided to go in that direction. A few weeks ago I finally decided on the pictures, design, and layout I wanted for our wedding album from our wedding photographer (I'm very indecisive so this took me a long while to figure out!), so that was the first part of his gift, our wedding album. Then, I decided that it was important for Blake to know how much I love him and all of the reasons why I am so in love with him. I wrote up all of the reasons and put them in an "I Love You Because..." jar. It was so fun for me to really think about and express how much I love him, and I found that after I started writing I just couldn't stop!! ha ha. I just kept thinking of more and more. So, I forget the final count of the notes in the jar, but I'd say around 120 or so? And I can't wait to keep adding more slips of paper to that jar as we continue in our life together and I keep falling more and more in love with him!! Then, just for fun, to top off his present I got him his own little bouquet of flowers (candy flowers that is!).

Blake opening his card

Blake's presents

     Then it was my turn...I loved my card, (as always, Blake finds the best, most meaningful ones!). Then, I noticed the little blue box with the most perfect white ribbon tied on top.....I've never gotten one of these little boxes before, but I knew exactly where it was from ...Tiffany's!!! I opened it up and found the most beautiful silver charm bracelet. The charm on it is in the shape of a heart...the front side of it repeats "I love you", and he had the backside of it engraved with my name :).

     I was so excited to get to wear my new bracelet out to dinner. Blake, again spoiling me, took me to a beautiful dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House. We had amazing food and a wonderful time. They put a little note card on our table that said "Happy Anniversary" and sprinkled red rose pedals on the table, and then topped off our meal with the most delicious, celebratory, banana dessert! It definitely added to our already special evening.

     After returning home on Sunday afternoon we spent the day just relaxing, enjoying our time together. We also dug into the top tier of our wedding cake! Not gonna lie, I know lots of people do it, but I was a little curious to see what a one-year old piece of cake would taste like....but it was actually really good! (my mom did a great job of wrapping and preserving it for us!)

     While we ate our cake we pulled out the wedding DVD my sister Anna had made for us. My dad carried around a video camera practically our whole wedding day, as well as during our reception in Vegas, and just shot random, cameo footage which my sister then went through and put together in a DVD for us. As we sat and ate our cake and watched our video we were reminded of how truly beautiful our wedding day was. I really appreciate my parents who gave us the most beautiful wedding dinner/reception we could have asked for, it was a dream! I'm also so grateful to the Harbers who put together our beautiful reception in Las Vegas. As if one beautiful celebration wasn't enough, we got two! We are so spoiled with the love and support of our families along with so many friends, and as we looked back on our wedding day we were reminded of how lucky we were to have all of our loved ones there with us.
     As you can probably see, this anniversary was incredible! I am so lucky to have an amazing husband who likes to plan and surprise, and who made it such a special weekend. I am absolutely in love with Blake and I feel so lucky to have him in my life. This anniversary weekend was so incredible and I can't wait to continue celebrating many more anniversaries to come!