5 Years Strong

I must give Brad the full credit for this year's anniversary. I, admittedly, FORGOT!! In my defense, I was aware that it was coming up within the week and I never forget the date, I just hadn't consciously nailed down the day. During church the Sunday before our anniversary, I agreed to feed the ward missionaries on Thursday - which just so happened to be our anniversary. I realized my mistake before leaving to go home a couple hours later (because Brad asked me what I wanted to do on Thursday), but Brad caught it before me and fixed the situation without me knowing.

Then he proceeded to plan our celebrations for Thursday (including a babysitter for Connor) and kept me completely in the dark. He asked our friends Sean and Ginger to watch Connor, and they are also the people that agreed to feed the missionaries for us that night - thank you, thank you!!! After Brad got home from work, we headed toward Long Beach, stopping at a grocery store to get sparkling cider and gold fish (I was hungry and we planned to eat dinner after). He took me on a gondola ride through Long Beach Harbor because he knew I loved the one a few weeks before in Vegas. It was a romantic, hour-long boat ride at sunset (even though our gondolier didn't have a great singing voice), and it was fun to see all the ridiculously expensive houses on the water and hear all the history of the area. After our gondola ride we called Sean and Ginger to make sure Connor was doing ok, and he wasn't. He has been clingy lately. So we drove home, put Connor to bed, and made ourselves a nice pasta dinner at 9 p.m. It was a fun night.




This is the most expensive house sold on the water to date. It sold for $13.5M and - get this - it's a SUMMER HOME for the owners. That means they have another house (maybe several!!) elsewhere to live the rest of the year!! Where do people get all this money?!

This is the house that inspired Barbie's Dreamhouse.


Breathtaking.

The traditional and modern gifts associated with the 5th wedding anniversary are wood, representing strength and a solidified relationship, and silverware, representing connectedness. Both of these represent our relationship very well at this point in our marriage.

Brad and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple 5 years ago on August 5. In the last 5 years, the two of us have completed 6 years (combined) of school, lived in 5 apartments, held 7 different jobs, been on countless vacations and weekend getaways, and added one new member to our small family. We've had a lot of ups and a few downs. Because of most of our experiences together (and in spite of a few others), our relationship is stronger than it's ever been.

In these 5 short years, nothing has brought us closer together than Connor. We love him. He is a compilation of both of us and we love teaching him, playing with him, and watching him grow. He brings so much more happiness into an already happy home.

Happy 5 years to my best friend Braddy! Wood is known to be long-lasting, so here's to many more years together!