20th Anniversary

Our anniversary fell on a Tuesday night, and we planned to celebrate at the weekend since Bryson had baseball practice. When his baseball practice got rained out, we threw something together last-minute and went to Perry's Steakhouse for dinner and then planned on a movie. We didn't buy movie tickets ahead of time, and the movie we wanted to see ended up being sold out, so we watched a movie at home together instead! The Saturday before our anniversary, we did some sealings in the temple. The word that stood out to me from the sealing ordinance this time is the word "receive," and the importance of choosing your spouse every single day. We definitely have had our struggles throughout the years--there are some things that I would love for Matt to work on and change, and I know he feels the same about me! Reading The Let Them Theory helped me put it in perspective. I loved the ABC loop idea:

A - Apologize
B - Back off, observe their behavior
C - Celebrate any progress
Give them 3-6 months without any negative energy. "Let them be."

D- Decide if it's a deal breaker
E- End the complaining or end the relationship

To end your complaining you have to love someone as they are, accept them, let go of expectations, focusing more on the 80% he's doing well instead of the 20% where he falters.

Matt doesn't normally buy me flowers because he knows I'm not a fan of the price tag, but he bought some in honor of a big milestone. The yellow sunflowers are in memory of our first date where he brought me a sunflower (and I thought it was weird). 

One of our favorite things to do together is play pickleball!

17th Anniversary

We celebrated our anniversary by going to Fogo de Chão and later seeing The Drowsy Chaperone, a musical playing at a local theater.

 

11 Year Anniversary

After juggling two baseball practices, we went out for a late dinner to one of our favorite restaurants Taste of Texas. Though the steaks weren't as good as we remembered, we enjoyed the salad and bread bar + the free snickers cheesecake. It was nice to have a longer date night together.

9 Year Anniversary

One of my birthday presents this year from my parents was tickets to see Cinderella on Broadway. Because the date of the show was 3 days away from our anniversary, we decided to count it as our anniversary date. We enjoyed dinner and the show and a fun night out together!

I love when Matt and I get a chance to spend time together without the kiddos. :)

Lucky

The Lucky streak continues.

Matt and I went to see a musical production of Jane Eyre a few weeks ago with some friends. During intermission, there was an opportunity to put your name in a drawing to win 4 tickets to the next musical production, Rent. As they got ready to read out the name of the winner, I turned to Matt and was about to say, "Wouldn't it be funny if they called out your name?" but I never got the chance before they announced Matt as the winner of the tickets. They just arrived in the mail, and Matt is going to sell them very cheaply to a co-worker.
The other day, Matt won 4 golf passes from a radio station to a course close by. With his long drive to work each way, he sometimes uses the time to call into radio stations and try to win fun prizes. He had his name in a drawing of 5 people the other Friday for a weekend getaway package, but that one didn't pan out. It would have been perfect timing for our anniversary.

Matt and I celebrated 4 years of marriage earlier this month. The longer I'm married to him, the more I realize just how lucky I am to be his wife. I'm lucky that he is such a positive and upbeat person. It really brings a wonderful atmosphere to our home; he is such a pleasant person to be around. It takes a lot to make Matt upset because he just chooses not to let things get to him.

I'm lucky that he is so patient both with me and the kids. When my patience has long worn thin when dealing with the kids, he still has an incredible amount of love and patience to give.

I'm lucky that he is such a hard worker. He works really hard at his job and around the house. He is more than willing to jump in and help with any household chore I ask him to do (even mop the kitchen floor on hands and knees which he thinks is silly).

I'm lucky that he has such "worldly" knowledge when it comes to fixing things around the house, fixing cars, building things, buying a house, etc.

I'm lucky to be married to someone that has so many similar interests as I do. We love playing sports together and playing games together. We are both really competitive so we have had to learn how to lose graciously over the years.

I'm lucky to be married to someone who supports me in my other interests that we don't share namely music. He is willing to go see musicals with me even though it wouldn't be his preferred activity for the evening.

I'm lucky he is such a people-person. It has helped us out in more than one occasion. He loves talking and getting to know new friends.

I'm lucky that Matt honors his priesthood and is so service-oriented. He would do anything to help people, and he does it because he loves it so much! The downside to this though is that he has a tendency to overbook himself sometimes and can't keep all the promises he's made to people! It leaves me husband-less at times too, but I'm glad that he is so charitable. (We like to joke that it makes up for my lack of charity!) We balance each other well, and I'm so grateful for all he does for our family.

I'm so lucky to be married to my best friend! I love having him by my side in all that we do. He makes me want to be a better person.

To celebrate our anniversary, we kept it really simple this year as we'll probably do something bigger for our 5th year. Matt came home early from work with a dozen roses, and we had a steak dinner at home followed by some tennis.

3rd Anniversary

On Tuesday, June 2, we celebrated 3 years of marriage! It was fun to reminisce about our wedding day.

As the wedding day drew closer, I was getting more and more stressed out about packing up my classroom and drawing all my teaching stuff to a close. The last day of school was June 1, and I got married the next day!

I remember the morning of my wedding day eating waffles with my family for breakfast, which Matt joined us for. My sister-in-law, Kari, did my hair (I'm so cheap I didn't want to pay anyone, and Kari did super great!).

During the ceremony, the funniest part was our kiss over the altar. Neither Matt nor I had ever been to a temple wedding, and we weren't sure what an "appropriate" kiss inside the temple would be. Added to our nerves, our "kiss" ended up being a peck on the lips. I got teased mercilessly!

The day was so blasted hot that our pictures didn't turn out as well as we wanted them to. We're both red-faced and sweating.

We did a luncheon at Olive Garden after pictures. After eating, everyone just lingered around and talked. Matt and I were enjoying conversation and family and weren't in any hurry to leave. Finally my sister, Ariane, shooed us out to leave for our honeymoon.

The honeymoon was short and not far away at all. We drove to Galveston and stayed the weekend at a Bed and Breakfast. Matt had to be at work on Monday (we got married on a Friday) so there wasn't much time for sight-seeing. We did enjoy long walks on the beach and an IMAX film. :o)

We did our reception the following Friday, which we enjoyed. I got another chance to get dolled up and to make more use of my wedding dress!

Wedding pics
(sorry so blurry...I need to re-scan)

Matt looks so young in all our pictures. That will be great in years to come, but he looks 17 or 18 to me instead of 24 on our wedding day.

Flowers that Matt bought for our anniversary

Eating at The Cheesecake Factory

Our food:

Matt's steak was divine. I was excited about my cashew chicken salad, but I wasn't impressed. I have never been good at ordering food at restaurants. Any time I try to branch out and try something new, I usually end up not liking it. Matt will often switch meals with me if I don't like mine because he's such a sweetie. Not this time though.... :o) Of course, cheesecake followed dinner!

2-year Anniversary

Monday, June 2, was our two-year anniversary. I applaud Matt for making arrangements for a babysitter and making reservations at one of our favorite restaurants AND keeping it a surprise from me. I had already started making dinner when Matt walks in with flowers (roses, sunflowers, and the irises down below--the roses and sunflowers took a turn for the worse) and a card which said we were going to take a trip down memory lane for the night. The sunflowers represented the first flower he ever bought me on our very first date.

So we started the evening with dinner at Benihanas, one of our favorite restaurants because they have the best fried rice in the world, but it is very pricey so we have not been there since we got married. We then took a stroll down the Woodlands River Walk, which is where we had our first kiss. As we walked, we talked about memories of when we were dating. We were aided by looking through some "scrapbooks" that we made each other when we were engaged to help us remember our whole dating experience. I highly recommend making some sort of memory book or writing down memories in a journal when engaged because as we were reading through the memories, it's amazing how much we had forgotten! It was a very romantic evening and made me fall in love with Matt all over again as we relived our dating memories.