anniversary getaway!

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on July 19th! It's funny looking back, because our 5th anniversary was going to be our big "babymoon" out of country tropical trip.  We thought that was a good monumental anniversary to celebrate and then start thinking babies.

Well God had a different plan, and our 5th anniversary was an overnight trip 1.5 hours from home and the first time I had left Adeline overnight.  We're thankful God has better plans than ours.  Adeline is the most amazing blessing that has happened to us in 5 years!

Anniversary Celebration Run-Down

year 1- couples massage and dinner

year 2- Ruth's Chris Steak House

year 3- stayed overnight in the same beach-front Florida resort room 

we stayed for our honeymoon

(pregnant with Adeline)

year 4- baby-free dinner out and then a beach walk 

(we were on a family trip to St. Simons, Georgia with my fam)

We threw around a lot of ideas for our 5th and none were with the mention of an overnight.  I hadn't been able to get myself to stay overnight away from Adeline her entire 20 months of living. (Breastfeeding also threw a tad hiccup in that because of her still wanting milk at bedtime and in the morning.  Totally okay with me...but I started to realize the need for us to get away.)

So I decided to make my gift to Justin the gift of time...that I would commit to an overnight trip away. I was so excited planning it, and because of that, knew I was ready to stay away from her overnight.

{disclaimer: many self-taken, fuzzy iPhone pics ahead ;) }

We left after church on Sunday and drove out of town 1.5 hours away to a scheduled couples massage at the same place we had our first anniversary couples massage.  Simply amazing! We aren't ones to splurge on things like that, so it made it extra special!

rejuvenated after our massage!

After that, we went and checked in at our hotel.  We stayed at the same hotel we stayed our wedding night.  What made it even better is that they had renovated all their rooms and their pool area, so it made it extra nice and a bit different.  It's a very classy, horse country, southern hotel.  We had made a note that it was our 5th anniversary and we had stayed their our wedding night when we reserved the room.  When we got to our room, they had booked us the balcony room on the top floor of one wing of their hotel.  We had a HUGE balcony overlooking part of the city.

After relaxing a bit and getting ready, we headed to a new, trendy Mexican restaurant we had heard a lot about.  They had great food and our table was facing the huge jellyfish tank that is centralized in the restaurant.

We spent the evening after dinner walking around a gorgeous park with a beautiful fountain.

The next morning we enjoyed sleeping in (which never EVER happens post-baby ;). We took our time, grabbed coffee and a danish and then explored the town some more, including eating a yummy lunch at a local place.

We decided that afternoon to hit up the oldest working distillery in the US for a tour since it was on our way home.  We had never taken a tour and even though we aren't drinkers, we were super interested in the history of it all.  It was a fun time and we learned a lot about our state's history, which was pretty cool!

That night, we met up with my family and Adeline at dinner to pick her up.  She acted like she could care less when we surprised her. ha! I'm pretty sure we missed her a tad more than she did us! :)

while mommy and daddy are away...the toddler will play!

It was a great time and such a special reminder of why Christ calls us to put our marriage first.  We were able to soak in some wonderful uninterrupted time together to reconnect.  That alone was the best gift we could have given each other!

Here's to at least 80 more amazing anniversaries with my amazing hubs!