Our Anniversaries ❤ (sometimes kids included)

We’ve made it!

7 whole years of marriage under our belts.

…’Lucky number 7′!♣️🎰

As the day approached this year we began to think of all the ways we have chosen to celebrate the anniversary of our ‘Big Day’!

Apparently some are more memorable than others…

I say that because we have forgotten how we spent our 3rd Anniversary… Whoops! I guess we should have written it down. 😂

How can we have already forgotten a day that is supposed to be so important to us? After only 7 years?!

We both went through our pictures trying to find any clues that would spark a memory, and we found pictures, but none of us. 😆

So before any more time passes and the memories fade, I want to start at the beginning with a short recap of our wedding along with our past anniversaries.

Here we go-

🖤》Our Wedding Day! (9/10/11)
We were married in Las Vegas, Nevada!

After months of research in our local area, we met with wedding planners and set appointments for tours of event spaces. Everywhere seemed extremely expensive for such a short period of time with very few guests. We wanted to really be able to enjoy where we were.

I jokingly said that we should just fly to Vegas and elope because it was all SO stressful.

Little did we know, once we looked up the costs of a ceremony and reception in Vegas, we would immediately take a weekend trip and set appointments to pick our destination!

Best. Idea. Ever.

We ended up paying a deposit at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino after some confusion about our first location choice at Mandalay Bay. (They said our date was already reserved, but the reservation was actually for us…) Only after we had paid a non-refundable deposit at our next choice did we receive a phone call about the misunderstanding. 🙁

Oh well… everything happens for a reason so we tried to be positive about the beautiful location that we had just reserved!

We had our location set, and flights over our wedding weekend were cheap!! Some of our friends were able to get round-trip tickets from Portland, Oregon for $90 and hotel rooms for under $100/night.

We knew it was unreasonable to expect everyone to attend our wedding, but that also made it easier to invite a large number of guests knowing that the final count would be less than a local wedding near home.

😁

Plus, being September… we were wanting to pick a place that would be warm and sunny, unlike our regular weather.

You know what actually happened?!..

It rained!! 🌧

Yes.. in Vegas..

On our wedding day!

Not before, not after.. just the day!

And at home, the sun was shining bright! 🌞 ha! Go figure, right?!

Just goes to show that our plans are not His plans, but looking back makes us grateful for the rain. We were told that rain on your wedding day means good luck… so maybe it’s true. 😊

The day went by as fast as anyone will tell you. 100 of our closest friends and family members came to witness our declaration of love, and we were all vacationing together!

The next day, with our almost 2 year old daughter, and our loved ones all around, we enjoyed relaxing on our labeled floaties..we marked them “The Bride” and “The Groom” in sharpie marker of course..💛 and soaked up the sun!

Having a destination wedding made it possible to spend so much more time with our guests in the casino and at the 2 pools, lazy river, and beach volleyball court. Such a blast!

The years following haven’t been filled with huge celebrations for our anniversaries. Instead, we simply value a little alone time together since that is hard to come by as parents..

Am I right?!

🖤》Our 1st Anniversary (9/10/12)
He had to work, and I was 6 months pregnant.. a big celebration didn’t seem like a good way to spend our money.

Don’t get me wrong.. it probably would have been fun, but being pregnant definitely makes outings a little less exciting so I felt like our first anniversary was perfectly perfect.

Our daughter went with my mom long enough for us to enjoy a delicious dinner outside, on a sunny evening, along the Columbia River. Beaches Restaurant never disappoints!

I had set our dining room table to look as close to our wedding reception tables as I possibly could, and pulled out the frozen top tier of our wedding cake since we were told it was a tradition..

…one year old cake!

How many of you have done this??

We were laughing and nervous to take our first bites, but it turned out to be surprisingly good!

Definitely not fresh… but still good enough to eat.

As we realized that we had made it through the “toughest year,” we thought that our first year of marriage was a breeze compared to all of the heartache while dating.. 😉

Thank you God! 🙌

🖤》Our 2nd Anniversary (9/10/13)
We were proud parents of 2 little girls at that point, and we had really hoped to make our second anniversary a little more exciting than our first. We planned for babysitting but that fell through a week before. We had already made reservations and figured that we needed to cancel.

As if God knew, our trusted neighbors heard our disappointment and insisted on us going. They volunteered to take care of our girls overnight!

Seriously?!

When we talk about that anniversary, we still can’t believe how amazing they are. ❤

Because of them, we had an adventure!

During the day we went to the Pendleton Round-Up!! Streets filled with shopping and music with the biggest rodeo around! 🎫🐃

That evening we had dinner at Wildhorse Resort & Casino… it felt like a little piece of our Vegas wedding.♦️

While waiting for our table, an old man stopped us…

He asked if I was the Bride.👰

And after we told him that it was our anniversary, he looked at my husband and said..

“You know, I still call my wife my Bride. She will always be your Bride, and that is what you should always call her.”

🤗❤

He made such an impact on both of us, and I wish I could thank him for such a simple and sweet bit of advice.

That moment was followed by us being led to our booth with a view of the Blue Mountains and a 4-course meal paired with 4 different wines.🥂

After dinner, we “people watched” around the casino… one of our favorite pastimes. 😂

What. A. Night.

🖤》Our 3rd Anniversary (9/10/14)
I wish we could remember what we did to celebrate..!

How in the world can we not remember?!🤔

All I know for sure is that I babysat my nephew for the first time that day because those are the only pictures I have..it was obviously a day well spent!😍

That same month.. 12 days later to be precise, we moved into our first home and began our small town life because we were pregnant with our 3rd baby girl!

Our future plans were clearly far more important than making a huge deal out of our anniversary that year.. or even remembering it. Ha!🤰🗻🏡

🖤》Our 4th Anniversary (9/10/15)

Can you say “Home Improvement?”

Woo! As home owners we were so excited to use any and all of our time and money to improve our home, so we decided the best way to spend our anniversary would be to paint!!

So that is exactly what we did.

We purchased a 5 gallon bucket of already mixed and unwanted paint for $25.. what a steal! Plus I loved the color.. a super light purple.

We cleared the room that was our additional living room space and spent the evening painting with loud music. 🎨🚪🎶

Little did we know, we would eventually transform the space into our bedroom by building closets and adding a sliding door.

It was meant to be our room! ☺

🖤》 Our 5th Anniversary (9/10/16)

Our first Saturday Anniversary!

It was chilly outside, but as long as there was no rain, we were happy!

The morning began with soccer team photos for our two oldest girls followed by afternoon games.

It was a great day! We love seeing our girls excel at sports.

Plus, we were given a kid-free night thanks to my husband’s mom.

We ate dinner at Olive Garden (gotta love the never ending breadsticks!)

Sat in the sun along the Willamette River in Portland..

And spent the night at a hotel near our girls where we enjoyed some relaxing jacuzzi and pool time without worrying about any possible drowning children! 😃

It felt like a huge celebration considering we normally had 3 little girls with us at all times, and they felt like they had a big night out too! Win-win! 💕

A night as just a couple is a blessing, but we are definitely parents! It’s almost comical how nearly every conversation ultimately ended up being about our babies.

We just couldn’t help it! 😃 #Parenthood

🖤》 Our 6th Anniversary (9/10/17)

Our day began with sunshine and church service.. we had alot to be thankful for!

We went shopping at Home Depot for lumber to get started on another home improvement project, and ended the day with a long family bike ride and playing at the playground. 🚲

Why so simple?

You may have guessed…

We were expecting another baby of course! 🤗 (a boy) 💚

So now, here we are..

🖤》Our 7th Anniversary (9/10/18)

A Monday.

It rained, but the sun eventually came out and made for a great day. 🌤

We drank coffee together on our front porch swing while all 4 kids relaxed and played inside. We had no plans, just plans to spend the day together.

There were presents to be opened from eachother and from the girls. (They love to put gifts together and color pictures in cards.)

How did we know just what eachother wanted?! 😄

We all got ready and left the house. The girls were expecting us to all go somewhere exciting! To us, exciting has a much different meaning than it does to them!

We chose a hardware store. 😆

But not just any hardware store…

Hippo Hardware in downtown Portland, Oregon.

There are so many antique hardware treasures to be found in that store. I hadn’t been since I was a kid and we had both wanted to go there for a few years now, we just never made the time to stop. Our house would probably thank us if we purchased anything from there! 😉

I set the timer for a family photo in the store and that was like pulling teeth!

The girls finally got into it, but gzzzz.. they were quite the little complainers from the start! So much complaining happened that we chose to call it quits and leave. At least I got some pretty great pictures that made it all worth while. 😍📸

Thankfully, my sister-in-law volunteered to take all 4 kids if we wanted some alone time. After non-stop complaining we decided to take her up on that offer!

We stopped for some coffee at Brewed Awakenings, picked up 3 ‘hot & ready’ pizzas from Little Caesar’s, and brought the kids over with food to share! 🍕

We were even able to greet our niece and nephew after their first day of school this year! 🏫📚

Our alone time had arrived, and instead of going to sit down for dinner, we chose to grab some handheld pitas from a Mediterranean restaurant, Baba’s. Mmmmm!

With our pitas in hand, we ate as we walked down to Best Buy to check out the lastest in technology. The only thing we purchased was an extra xbox controller so I can learn to play some xbox games too. (Not sure how exciting this will be, but sure..)

Next stop, Ross. I found a cute shirt, and for only 10% of the price of the new controller we had just purchased… 😏

Plus some perfume. 🌹💖

Last stop, IKEA.

Because who doesn’t love Ikea?! There is literally everything you could need to organize any living space, plus they sell food, soda, and dessert!

This time though, we only went for the soda and frozen yogurt.🍦

After that, we picked up our babies and drove the winding backroads home.

A day well spent.

💑

So that’s it…

All 7.

Let me just say.. I am so thankful for the people in this world that have volunteered to watch our children. I do my best to pay it forward.. we all need just a little time, sometimes. 🤗❤

What have I learned about the best way to celebrate an anniversary?!

Nothing.

It doesn’t really matter..

…as long as it is time spent together.

Even if you don’t remember what you did, not remembering together has turned out to be kinda funny.

Just always remember to make that day your day and it doesn’t matter what the plans are.

The one thing I do know..

I wouldn’t forget an anniversary that we spent apart…

..because that leaves an impact! 😆😘

❤ -Mama Katie

“Let all that you do be done in love.” -1 Corinthians 16:14