Our 9 year Anniversary

Ian and I had a wonderful anniversary weekend!  Ian had secretly arranged for my mother to watch the boys all weekend, so it was quite a treat!  

Ian and I had been compiling a list of all the things we love to do (and used to do frequently) before our kiddos came along.  Most of them are small things, but as you all may know, when you are a parent, there are certain activities that are no longer as "relaxing" as they used to be before you were accompanied by kids under the age of 4.

Our list was simple:

-going to a show (a live music show that is)

-slow, relaxing picnic in the park with wine and food and a good book

-lounging around Barnes and Nobel reading magazines and checking out all manner of cool books

-thrift store shopping - taking the time to really treasure hunt and feeling great about your secret finds

So, come Friday evening, Ian and I were on our way to my parent's house to drop off the boys.  We then headed straight to our favorite hole in the wall Chinese restaurant and grabbed some take-out food.  The park was just around dusk and the lightening bugs were aglow (Ian's all-time favorite bug).  We had a nice, slow picnic in the park with our Chinese food and a great bottle of wine my father had given us as an anniversary gift!  It was heavenly and we checked one item off our list!

 Saturday morning we slept in till 9am!  Then we had a leisurely morning, grabbed some Starbucks and headed out to our favorite Austin thrift store: Buffalo Exchange.  I don't have any photos from our scavenging there - but I can tell you we were lost in our treasure hunting for a good 3 or 4 hours before we headed to the check out counter with our finds.  I found all my items on the 50% off rack (which is pretty darn cheap for second hand - I didn't pay over $5 for any of my new clothing finds!)  Actually, the most expensive item I bought were some shoes at $18...

Ian found some great vintage T'shirts, some shoes and some fun button up's!  By mid-day we were tired and headed home to watch Meet The Parents while we took our time getting dressed up for our night out on the town!

Now, I'm not sure if you know this, but it has been an anniversary tradition for quite some time now, to have dinner at the fondu fun house called Melting Pot.  So we put on my fancy new thrift store finds and headed out for some serious cheese and chocolate!

This is us waiting for our table to be set

Once we were at our table the lighting was incredibly low and romantic, so our flash photos came out weird and the ones without the flash were red - but at least we documented the event!

We spent Sunday morning hanging out at Barnes and Nobel reading and relaxing and doing nothing of importance at all.  It was wonderful!    We had nice sandwiches under the gazebo for lunch and then headed back to pick up our little guys.  What a wonderful way to celebrate 9 years!

When celebrating our anniversary, Ian and I have a tradition of telling one another the thing that we enjoyed most during this year of marriage.  Sometimes it is a particular event, sometimes it is a way in which we have grown as a couple or what not.  

This year Ian said he really felt like our working together and entrepreneurial spirit grew and deepened our relationship in new ways, and I completely agree.  Since Ian has been working from home this year it has been such a wonderful blessing to our family and a new balancing act as well.

Mine was sorta similar to Ian's in that I really enjoyed our "teamwork" this year.  I feel like we work so well together in the workplace, creatively, and as parents.  I'm so grateful to have such a perfect blend of personality traits between us that really make us a powerhouse couple.  

Of course, 9 years ago when we stood and made vows to one another we could never have guessed all the things that God had in store for us - but what an incredible adventure it has been so far and what an incredible man I have to share it all with!