celebrating our journey together

I talked about what it takes to make it to 5 years of marriage, but now let's get to how we celebrated.

It was AMAZING!

When we first got married, we always thought that we would travel somewhere new at this point in our marriage and continue the adventures we have been on thus far in our relationship. Fast forward to reality, add in Calvin with his restrictions, and it just couldn't happen as we had originally planned.

So, we went back to the drawing board and decided to have a new adventure through food. We settled on the restaurant Fruition in Denver and were drawn to it initially because it tops most lists of top restaurants in Denver, grows much of their own ingredients, and it is necessary to make a reservation at least a month in advance. We lined up our babysitters (Big Poppa & Uno) and it was a plan!

I was completely happy with these plans, but Andy had other things in store for our special night and I was blown away!

Surprise #1: As we were sitting in our living room chatting with my parents, all watching Calvin motor around the room with less and less effort, Andy said that our cab was here. We are huge fans of the iPhone app Taxi Magic and Andy had been giving me the play by plays of where our driver was located, acted like he was talking to him on the phone, and told me his name. As I got up to leave the house, I saw a long, sleek, black limo at the end of our driveway. A minute later Andy walked up from the basement with a cooler packed with yummy drinks and a grocery bag filled to the brim with snacks.

Surprise #2: Andy wasn't satisfied with just having a limo pick us up and drive us around for an hour before our dinner reservation. No, he put WAY more thought into it. Sure, we drove around, but Andy had a list of stops for the driver and our drive had a purpose. The purpose was to take us to spots in Denver that were significant on our journey together as a couple. He popped a bottle of Shramsberg champagne (we visited this winery when we traveled to Napa), handed me a card that was marked with #1, and we headed to City Park (the site of our wedding).

Surprise #3: It was so extremely special to be back at the cite of our wedding ceremony. We still love every single thing about our wedding day and the location was a major part of how special it was for us. After we walked around our wedding site, we hopped back in the limo and Andy handed me a card that was marked with #2. There may have been a few tears at this point, but mostly happy! From City Park, we headed in the direction of Saint Joseph's Hospital where Calvin was born. The hospital played a big role in our latest endeavor of becoming parents and although the experience is still pretty fresh in our minds, it was a great reminder how important that place is along our journey together. Most of all, it is a place where we went from being just two to being a family of three.

Surprise #4: From the hospital, Andy presented yet another card. Yep, you guessed it, this one was marked with #3. We made our way to 11th and St. Paul, more specifically 1114 St. Paul Street where we first lived together in Congress Park when Andy moved from Minnesota to Colorado. This place was where our relationship truly began. We were living in a new city, basically knowing no one, and we were able to explore it together. We were inseparable (even more so than we are today) and loved our Congress Park location and quirky old apartment. It was so fun to reminisce about how we started with little to no furniture or dishes and see how far we have come since then.

Luckily, there was a super sweet couple on the porch that agreed to take our picture.

Surprise #5: After visiting St. Paul St., we made it over to the restaurant. We enjoyed a nice dinner, but secretly, we both couldn't wait to finish so that we could get back to the limo and hang out in style some more! We definitely felt like celebrities as we exited the restaurant to our black stretch of beauty. Andy had the driver take the long way home where I was presented with my last card. Once we were home and checked in with our babysitters and the little guy, we ended the night in our pajamas where Andy presented me with the last item of his grab bag. It was a DVD marked with a #5. As we sat in our sweats, we watched a movie of our journey together from all the places we traveled, to our first furry companion, and all of it scripted with Andy's beautiful words.

To say that I felt special doesn't even come close to describing how I felt on our special night celebrating 5 years of marriage. It must have been quite a feat for Andy to surprise the ultimate planner who is his wife and I am so happy that he took the time and effort to make it all happen.

Something I realized as we were taking this mini tour through our relationship together was that the majority of our journey is embedded in this city and state out west. Some really important events in our lives together have happened right here in Denver, CO. I also thought about being able to some day take Calvin on the exact same tour. Yep, there were tears, but they were all happy tears. Throughout all of our happy times and the challenges, we have stuck by each other's side and are thriving. Andy isn't a little thing in my life, but a major part of who I am today. I am so thankful for him and his love for me and now Calvin too. He is a special man and I can't wait to celebrate 5 more years together and beyond!

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the year of wood

5 years ago we said, "I do".

5 years ago we celebrated our love with our dearest friends and family.

5 years ago we began this journey of marriage.

I talked about our gift giving strategy for our anniversaries back here and this year is no different. It is the year of wood. I'm not quite ready to reveal our gift to each other yet, but I can tell you that it is a gift that we will be able to enjoy for a long time together.

Until the gift reveal, I will leave you with some of the things that have helped us make it this far in marriage, loving each other more and more each day and still enjoying every single day we get to go through this life together.

Strength

In the last year, than any other year that we have been together, we have had to call upon our strength individually and as a couple. There have been emotional, physical, and mental challenges to our strength that have tried to defeat us (read more about those here, here, here, here, and here). White it finally feels like we are coming out the other end from these challenges and are even stronger than when we started, it has made me realize that this is a quality that is prevalent in our marriage. I guess you never really have to think about strength until you need it and then it makes you realize how much you actually have or can conjure up in a time that it is needed the most. In so many ways, we are getting stronger, but more importantly, we are realizing the amount of strength that was already within us. Ain't nobody going to bring us down!

Support

If you celebrated with us at our wedding, you witnessed our vows where we promised to always live a "Team First" marriage (you can see more from our wedding ceremony here). Basically, Andy and I are the team and all decisions are made between the team members. This means that we try not to let others or any outside factors in to our decision making process in our marriage. This seems basic, but it can be really challenging. Between family members who have strong opinions, friends who do things differently, or even pressures from society and media can influence decisions if you let them. There have definitely been times where one or both of us have struggled with this promise, but overall, it is the main foundation that we continually revisit in our relationship and one of the reasons we are still going strong after 5 years.

Communication

This is the number one thing that I would swear hands down keeps a relationship together. It is the #1 advice I give to new couples getting married or even friends that are looking at how to make their relationships better. The most important thing is to talk about EVERYTHING from the littlest thought or idea in your head to the big scary subjects and do this often.

With that being said, it is definitely not as easy as it sounds, especially in order to communicate effectively. There needs to be time set aside to communicate often and the "scary" stuff needs to be addressed as often as possible. Of course, this doesn't mean that we are always very good at this, but we know it's what we need to do when things are feeling even the slightest bit off in our relationship. Sometimes there's tears, but we always come out the other side feeling better than we did before we let out what was on our minds.

Friendship

This is where it all started. We nurtured our friendship for 5 years before we ever started dating, but it was a slow burn that eventually ignited and brought us together. Once we were both in the right place, everything just clicked. We were able to fast forward much of our relationship because we already knew each other so well and we were very comfortable with one another. Today, we are still the best of friends and enjoy each others company over anyone else.

Overall, it feels like we've made it. It feels like our marriage is legit now that we have gotten to this milestone. 5 years!

Stay tuned for details of our anniversary celebration. It was a night filled with many surprises and lots of love!

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