I guess you could say I was tired, and that whole following week I was even more tired and the idea of documenting our not-so-amazing anniversary trip sounded like hell. So I put it off until now because now that I have more energy I just cannot pass up the chance to say a couple of nice things about marriage, tell you our hilarious story from Louisville, and best of all, to post some fun photos of anniversary trips past where I happen to look a lot skinnier than I do now (which when you are growing a baby inside of you and gaining over a pound a week you need to look at skinny pictures of yourself to feel happy).
Anyhoo...
So July 11 was our second wedding anniversary and July as a month is the marker of us being together for five years. (See, I guess I'm not really technically late on this post after all!) For every single one of our "anniversaries", starting with our first year of dating, we have traveled to a new place to celebrate. Our first was in Denver, CO. in 2007.
Don't we look SO young there! Ahhh to be 22 again... Anyways our second anniversary we spent in Asheville, NC and this happened to be when Justin decided to propose! So sweet!
Our third anniversary/honeymoon was in Key West. We love that we got married in July, which was the same month we began dating, because we kind of just get to keep on counting the years. I guess technically is starts over here though... Anyways, Key West was AMAZEBALLS!
I love you Key West... We'll come visit soon I promise.
Ok moving on to our first official wedding anniversary. We decided to keep it a little light and just took a quick weekend trip to Atlanta where we had a nice romantic evening followed by a great day at Six Flags where we got to unleash our inner kid... well who am I kidding. We are just big kids every day!
Selecting only two photos from each of our anniversaries was pretty hard for me. There are so many fun memories we have captured with so many great pictures and looking through them all has me smiling from ear to ear. I'd like to think its pretty obvious we have a blast with each other; Justin is by far my all time favorite travel buddy for sure. So when I looked back through the pictures from our second anniversary trip/pit stop to Louisville, KY and found only one picture of the two of us I knew it was as bad as I remembered. And this one picture wasn't a cute dinner picture or anything... it's this crap-
Yup... our reflection in a freaking window. Awesome. Let me explain...
This anniversary trip was essentially a tack-on to our trip up to Michigan for some good friends' wedding. I guess this would mean it started on our way out of Michigan Sunday July 10th... the day before our actual anniversary. This day started out pretty rough, as any morning after a wedding does. Justin was a little hungover and I was dog tired from staying up way too late two nights in a row. I decided to drive however, to let Justin sleep off a little of his yuckiness. Within the first hour, we got the first sign that the rest of this trip was going to suck... We got a phone call that we had left all of our hang-up clothes back at the hotel in Brighton, MI. Greeeeeaaaaatt. An hour and a half later we start the trip again, with both of us being that much more cranky.
I have to say here that Justin has been the most amazing, supportive and perfect guy for this entire pregnancy, but today, well this was not his day. He was not in a "coddle-my-pregnant-wife" mood whatsoever and without boring you with the actual meat of the fight, I'll just tell you that it ended with me not talking to him for the remaining six hours of the trip. SIX HOURS. If you have met me even once, you know that me not talking for six hours is unthinkable, yet it happened. It really did.
So we pull up at our absolutely incredible, romantic hotel and Justin is trying his best to snap me out of the cold shoulder attitude from hell. He even asks for an upgrade to a room with a tub knowing that a bath would be the perfect thing for his tired and sore eight months pregnant wife. That was a no-go but usually the gesture would have been rewarded with some love from me, but not today buddy. I was like Stone Cold Steve Austin's evil twin. After getting up to the room we begin talking about dinner; well he is talking about dinner while I maintain a "I don't care where we eat" attitude. I know, real mature. Anyways, he gets it out of me that I'd like Italian, yet after finding out that pretty much every restaurant in good ole Louisville is closed on Sundays, we decide on Macaroni Grill.... because ya know, I didn't even care.
Pulling up to our anniversary dinner at a chain Italian restaurant we should have known... the parking lot was empty and I swear I saw a dust thingy roll by. But in we go, and there were surprisingly a few people in the restaurant. The hostess tries to seat us at a table, where I bitterly say I'd prefer a booth. Maybe she didn't like how I asked because I swear she sat us at the most uncomfortable booth on the planet. So as we sit really awkwardly in this booth from hell our server comes up and poor thing could already feel the tension. He asks for our drink orders as quickly as possible and runs off to get away from the really pissed off couple... well the really pissed off huge pregnant woman. He then brings us our waters, which are served in the sorriest little glasses I have ever seen (strike two) and while he is standing there I ask him where the Ravioli Formaggi is on the menu. "We don't have that on the menu anymore, mam". Oh. Hell. No. And this is where I crack... the last seven hours of me maintaining what I thought was a calm, collected but really super pissed off attitude then immediately turned into a pathetic, bawling mess of a pregnant woman. It was awkward.
I could go on for three more paragraphs about how terrible this meal was. Poor Justin, poor server and poor me. It was awful. We left after eating mere bites of our disgusting food and were driving back to the hotel when we decided to just quickly drive by and say hello to a friend who was also in town at the time. I mean its not like we were heading back to the hotel for nookie or anything so why not hang out with friends at a bar on your anniversary. We were on the road to the bar when the clouds parted a bit and God sent me a little angel.
As we were driving we spotted a sign that read Homemade Ice Cream & Pie Kitchen and I almost started crying again, but this time out of happiness. Justin, who was just happy to see me smiling for a change, immediately parked the car and we went in where I took approximately ten minutes to narrow my order to some homemade birthday cake ice cream, that had actual chunks of real yellow cake in it, and this little guy:
Note to anyone reading this: If you see a pregnant woman who is sad, give her a cookie monster just like this and all will be right in the world.
We ended up having a total blast with our friends that night, and when we came back to the hotel we were in love and happy again, which I guess is why we decided to pull out the camera and take the one picture we got of us from the entire trip. The next day was good too, well as far as "us" being good. As things continued to go wrong in the same fashion as the whole Macaroni Grill incident, we just laughed about it. We had planned to do some antiquing to find ourselves our usual anniversary gift (I forgot to mention that we always buy a gift for ourselves on each of our trips instead of buying individual gifts) but every single store in that damn city was closed. "Oh well", we said, "We'll just go to a cool restaurant to make up for a crappy dinner last night". Negatron. Every restaurant we wanted to try was closed. Still happy and in love though we decided to go to Texas Roadhouse as a kind of throw back to the place we met... sweet right. We head to the closest one which was in Indiana, believe it or not, got stuck in terrible traffic, decide to go to a different location in KY and when we roll up it was the freaking dust thingys again, yet this one was actually CLOSED! Seriously?! They didn't open until 4:00...
Things like this continued on all day but each time we only laughed a little harder and in a strange way it only made the whole day better. That's the thing with me and Justin, the world can be going to crap, but its all ok as long as we are "us", meaning that we aren't in a stand-off of crankiness. It was a lesson to try and take some things a little less seriously, because fights can be so dumb. I don't want to be quiet for that long ever again, because in those seven hours of me pouting, we probably missed out on some great things. I know fights will happen, but when they do, I want to try and resolve them quickly and move on to keep living this great little life. Love is so much more fun...
Looking back on how terrible this anniversary was I know that it was exactly what it was meant to be. As everything around us was going wrong, we could still look at each other and get that pit of your stomach raw feeling of happiness and just smile. To be more in love with every anniversary that passes, well, to me that is the greatest anniversary present of all.
I am so so lucky. Love you J.
No comments:
Post a Comment