The Big 1!

Thomas and I just celebrated our first year of marriage. It's crazy to think about all the time we put into planning the wedding and a whole year has already flown by!

We didn't think we were going to be doing anything other than going out to dinner on the big day- Thomas' schedule has been busy and he was warned that he might not get the time off. But at the last minute he got his schedule which gave him 4 days off in a row on our anniversary weekend! We scrambled as quickly as we could to put together an affordable weekend getaway in San Diego- quite the task when your anniversary falls on a holiday weekend.

We got a great deal staying 4 days and 3 nights at the Hilton in San Diego! We walked around the water, hung out at the beach, spent a day at the zoo, and of course we had to get a burrito from Hectors and tortillas from Old Town. We had such a great time- we miss Cali so much! I think the most important thing that we did on our anniversary though- which we intend to do every year- is we stood in the water on the beach in Coronado and recited our wedding vows to one another. It's kind of an unofficial renewing of our vows to each other. As the years pass, we'll get to know them by heart and maybe add to them.

(Here's one of the many views from our amazing room)
(Here we are at our official anniversary dinner in La Jolla)
(There were fireworks outside our hotel every night- two nights were for a festival on the water and the third was at Petco Field which was across the street from our hotel. We'd like to think the fireworks were just for us to celebrate our big day.)

We also exchanged gifts- one year of marriage is supposed to have a paper anniversary gift. I know that Thomas loves maps and I had been trying to figure out a way to incorporate that somewhere in our home. I decided to get a 24x36 map of the United States, mount it on a bulletin board and then stick pins in all the locations that Thomas and I had been to as a couple. Not only can we see where we have been, but now we can look forward to adding more pins to our map in the future!

My gift from Thomas was so sweet! He got me one of those digital photo frames and created a slide show using our wedding pictures and photos throughout our relationship and incorporated our wedding vows into the show. It was so adorable- I almost cried!

But we got a great surprise when we got home as well! Our rebate came in for being first time home-buyers so we can now look into getting rid of our yucky tile counter tops in the kitchen and ugly floor tile (hopefully the rebate will cover all of that).

So there you have it- a fantastic first anniversary getaway and soon a new home renovation!