.hello. 2 years

Yesterday my dear hubby, RJ, and I celebrated 2 years of marriage! I just want to take a moment to express how grateful I am for this man. He truly is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. He is my best friend and the last 7 years have been the biggest adventure with him in my life. Okay, enough mushiness! 🙂

I love this man SO much!

Thanks to ‘restructuring’ with the hubby’s job and ridiculous heat that people don’t want to be out taking pictures in, we were broke as a joke this year! All that means is that we had to get creative! We cashed in our piggy bank at coinstar and had a whopping $25 to spend on a fun filled day together!

Yes, I did get weird looks while taking pictures at the coinstar!

We bought some things for a picnic and cooked oven baked chicken fingers, broccoli with cheese, strawberries, watermelon, and cookies to take with us up to Cheaha Mountain! It was yummy! We were actually out running a severe thunderstorm warning, but we are the type to let that get in the way of plans! We had a blast! We ate and then we went to the tower which is the highest point in Alabama. It’s really cool up there. Getting to be up there when it was raining down below was really cool to see as well. On our way back down the mountain we saw a deer! It was so awesome! RJ slammed on the breaks and was like LOOK! He knows exactly what excites me. lol

Isn’t that deer the coolest thing ever? I got so excited!

 

The highest point in Alabama! Isn’t the tower beautiful?

After we came down from the mountain we went to have coffee at Joe Muggs where we met inside Books A Million 7 years ago. It’s crazy to me to think we’ve been together for 7 years now. Since a week after I graduated high school. I’d gone in to purchase a book (The Outsiders) for an audition I had coming up in community theater and RJ was my cashier. We just chatted for a moment at the registrar and a few days later we found each other on Myspace (7 years ago, remember!). I added him as a friend and he messaged me. We sent emails back and forth and I gave him my number. He called me and we’d talk for hours. In fact, the night before our first day he called me about 7 that night and we were on the phone until 5 the next morning and we were leaving at noon to drive all the way to Montgomery to see a show at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. We had a wonderful first date, but I actually fell asleep on the way home. It must have worked in my favor though because here we are 7 years later, married, 4 furbabies, a house, and a wonderful life!

When doing anniversary gifts, RJ and I follow the traditional gifting system. Last year for our 1 year anniversary the gift was paper. I gave him boudoir photos and he had his wedding vows put into our local paper for me. We missed out on the chance to have our announcement in the paper the year before so it was really really special!

This year the gift theme is ‘cotton’. We haven’t actually given one another gifts yet, simply because our money has been tied up other places, but when I saw that the alternate gift was china I knew what I wanted us to do! I’ve seen the sharpie mugs all over pinterest and I knew it would be the perfect little anniversary project to do together. So while we were watching The Princess Bride and eating popcorn we each decorated a coffee mug for the other person and we inscribed a plate with our wedding vows! Perfect! I love how they turned out and they are super sentimental! I’ll post a how to blog this week so stay tuned!

At the end of the night, right before bed, we watched our wedding video. I cannot get through it without crying. It’s such a wonderful memory. The ceremony was so perfect and so us. Our vows, our readings, the music, it was us. I love it. It didn’t go as planned, and looking back there are details I’d loved to have changed, and I am planning a vow renewal for our 5 year anniversary, but the one thing that I wouldn’t change is the words that were said and the man I said them to. I married my best friend that day and I wouldn’t change a moment of that!