8 years, Woo Hoo!!

Tomorrow is our 8th anniversary so we spent a wonderful weekend together celebrating.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures of our weekend festivities to add.  We seem to be using our camera less and less these days, so you will have to use your imagination.  

This year was Ryan's turn to plan our anniversary (we got the idea from our friends, the Wares, to take turns planning our anniversary date).  The first surprise was that he happened to be off work on Friday.  We started our day early by doing our weekly training run/workout for the Tough Mudder together.  Around lunch time I was cleaning up in the kitchen and Ryan comes in and tells me to get ready because the babysitter is here for us to go out.  I had figured he had planned something for Saturday night so I was pretty surprised that he had organized the babysitter and we were going out in the day.  

We were both quite hungry since we had run 7 miles along with boot camp exercises every 1/2 mile for our workout that morning.  We headed over to our favorite (and the only) Indian restaurant in town and gorged ourselves on their awesome lunch buffet.  That's the one bad thing about Indian food tasting so good--you can be completely full but you keep eating because each bite still tastes awesome.

I thought we were heading home then because we had to get kids to nap, etc.  But we drove right past our street to turn home and into down town.  I really had no idea where we were going.  I was very pleasantly surprised when Ryan walked us into a swanky spa!  I have never been to a spa or had any spa treatments.  And since we have started this tough mudder training my back has been all sorts of tight and I have been thinking how wonderful a professional massage would be.  We got to experience the whole spa package complete with foot bath, relaxation room, hot herbal tea, aromatherapy shower, and an hour long massage.  It was so relaxing!!  Maybe even a little too relaxing because I felt pretty lethargic for the rest of the day :)  

But wait, the anniversary weekend is not done yet!  We woke up early Saturday morning to head to the temple for a sealing session.  It's always so wonderful to go to the temple and I really enjoyed being able to go with Ryan and remember the covenants we have made.  Christine and Sam met us up there and watched the kids for us while we went.  Afterward, we spent some time in Tri-Cities letting the kids play with their cousins at a slash pad park and then hitting up some Costa Vida for lunch.  Then we had to stop by WinCo for some chocolate covered cinnamon and gummy bears (awesome!).  It was such a fun weekend and a great anniversary.  I am so grateful to be married to such a wonderful man.  Ryan is my best friend and soul mate.  I'm such a lucky lady!!

And because it's not a real post without pictures, here are some fun ones:

Grant and Tate found the stash of winter hats and gloves and had to put some on to be true superheros and to better fight off the bad guys.

They are fierce!

Luke (on the right) and his favorite cousin Will stuffing their faces with puffs down by the river.  We went to visit them last weekend.  Be expecting a post in the near future.

We were trying to remember what we had done on each of our anniversaries.  I have recorded some on this blog but there are several we couldn't remember.  For posterity's sake, here's the list of what I can remember:.

year 7:  I took Ryan to the arts and crafts museum in Columbus, OH, because they had a wood carving display (which we both like to look at). Then we went to our favorite Indian restaurant (I'm noticing a trend here), and then to a bakery downtown to get some of their famous French macaroons--which happen to be probably the best cookie of my life!!

year 6:  Was Ryan's year, but we actually kind of planned it together since we had our cruise and then went to see the Broadway play, Wicked.  That was definitely our most exciting/biggest anniversary date.

year 5:  This was shortly after we moved to Ohio so it wasn't too exciting but fun to get out of the house.  We went to Schmidt's Sausage Haus (a famous restaurant in German Village) and then spend time walking around a really cool bookstore nearby.  I actually also posted about this date here

year 4:  We were staying with my parents in VA for a month for one of Ryan's rotations for dental school.  Ryan took me to my absolute favorite restaurant at the time, Carrabba's, and then he gave me some lovely white gold hoop earrings that he picked out himself and that I have literally worn almost every day since then.  For a man's man, Ryan has surprisingly good taste in jewelry!

year 3:  This is the year we were visiting family in Utah for a few weeks over Ryan's dental school break. Grant was about 3 months old and I remember I wasn't leaving him for very long periods of time because, as a new mom, I was convinced that my baby couldn't survive more than 30 minutes without me.  I took Ryan to a restaurant in the Sandy area called The Mayan.  It's themed after a Mayan temple/ruins and there's a pool in the middle that people diving into from cliff ledges.  It's one of those places were the food is only a small step above cafeteria quality but you're willing to pay $15 a plate because of the fun atmosphere.  I can't remember if we did anything else, but I'm sure we enjoyed getting out without the baby.

year 2:  I can't remember everything about our anniversary this year, but I do remember that I made a homemade apple pie with apples that our friends the Basils gave us from their family's apple tree in Greensboro, NC.  Ryan still speaks of that pie in reverent tones and always refers to it as the best apple pie he's ever eaten.

year 1:  This was right after we had moved cross country and settled into our apartment in NC.  It's fun to think about us then, still newlyweds without any kiddos.  I remember I was starting to get dinner ready when Ryan came home from school on our anniversary.  Since Ryan had just started dental school we were pretty serious about trying to save money so I figured we wouldn't be doing much and I would just make dinner at home.  Ryan walked in, pointed at me dramatically, and said (jokingly) "Honey, put down that grubby chicken, we're going out!".  We went to our favorite local Italian restaurant and had a great time not feeling guilty about spending some money!