a history of wedded bliss

Happens every year...

Yesterday DBH and I celebrated our wedding anniversary.

Inevitably we ended up discussing the wedding and our past 3 anniversaries and I realized that I never wrote any of our stories down. I used to keep an actual journal, but for some reason, I stopped writing when I got busy planning the wedding.

And now there's blogging.

So I thought I'd do a quick recap!

When we got married, our plan was to always spend our anniversary... somewhere else. In 2007, we drove down to one of my absolute favorite places- New Orleans. NOLA has always been special to me because it's somewhere I vividly remember traveling to with my family; and while my itinerary may have changed a little (a little less aquarium- although DBH and I did go there- and a little more Bourbon Street- duh), some things haven't changed a bit. For example, the food. My mom and I always joke about going to certain cities just to eat (also, Chicago), but seriously, you just can't beat gumbo, jambalaya, and OF COURSE cafe au lait and beignets! (I don't know exactly how many times I've been to NOLA, but DBH has started telling our friends that, if they plan on going, they'd better take me as a tour guide. Flattering, but I'm nothing compared to Jenn and Aeron, who made our trip even better by spending a day with us!) Anyway, DBH and I stayed at one of my favorite hotels- the Ambassador. It's across Canal Street from the French Quarter, so it's a bit of a walk to and fro (or longer if you've been in Pat O's all afternoon, trust me), but the building used to be a coffee mill, so the architecture and decorating is really unique.
I was hoping to include some pictures with each of these recaps, but I can't seem to find the ones from this trip... see end of facebook album "Wear Sunscreen."
**First Anniversary Gift: Paper= receipts from our hotel and dinner at The Gumbo Shop (and Pat O's, etc)

'08 was our biggest trip thus far- we both had vested interest in seeing the ends of 2 very different eras taking place in NYC, so I let DBH book our flights (O.M.G.) and took off (quite literally) to the Big Apple. Now, for most people, this isnt' a huge deal. I wish I were most people. Instead, I'm anti-planes. HATE them. So when we walked out of the runway, asking ourselves, "Why are we walking out on the runway?" and saw this:

I freaked and started chewing Ativan like M&Ms.
I made it onto the plane, but apparently couldn't muster enough of an act to convince The Stewardess (Yup- The. As in One.) that I wouldn't pass out. After the captain asked passengers to SWITCH PLACES TO BALANCE OUT THE PLANE WEIGHT, we were off. Everything was fine... until we got to NYC and started to descend. Suddenly, we were ascending again. Our captain, annoyed, explained that ANOTHER PLANE PULLED IN FRONT OF US, and we had to wait to land. But that was ok too because 1) the Ativan had kicked in full force by then and 2) this was our view:

We stayed in a studio apartment at the suggestion of our resident NYC expert, Amy P, seen here introducing me to Jamba Juice- aka "liquid crack, but fruity!":

Amy also introduced us to the East Village (lots of "emoting" going on there), "man-pris" (3/4 length pants on dudes), and Wall Street; but definitely the most moving part of our trip was visiting Ground Zero:

Words failed all three of us, needless to say.
And the truly weird thing about it was watching the rest of the city go on with daily living while we stood with silent thoughts and tears. Just a reminder that life does continue and that America won't be beaten by fear, but still, very strange.
DBH and I talked about how this trip was actually quite bittersweet- we were there to celebrate our wedding day, but also to celebrate 2 very special parts of New York that have since been lost:
RENT on Broadway:

(after dinner at Frankie and Johnnie's where we sat next to what could only have been plants by the restaurant to feed the stereotypes formed by tourists... where else are you going to hear the following statement made in the most Jewish accent imaginable:"OH MY GOD! I LOVE YOUR NEW HAIR! YOUR FACE IS SO SMALL!")
and Yankee Stadium:

And of course we squeezed in some touristy stuff too:


(Again, for complete photo recaps, facebook: "Playing Spiderman" and "No Day But Today.")
**Second Anniversary Gift: Cotton= t-shirts from the NBA store for Will, stuffed seahorse from FAO Schwartz for me (I always get a random stuffed animal when I go to that store- the first one was a stuffed stingray from our choir trip to the Macy's parade in '97, the second was a white lion from our family trip at Christmas of '98.)

'09 came found me in Anesthesia School, so we hit the beach:
See facebook "Semester 1 highlights" (Starting to wonder what happened to all of these pictures and also which ones I've lost that I can't even remember taking...)
**Third Anniversary Gift: Leather= cowboy boots for Will
Pearls= single pearl with diamonds pendant for me

Which brings us back to yesterday. I'm obviously farther into school now, so no trip this year- clinicals keep me late on Friday and DBH has work Monday morning, so any trip would be too quick to justify the $$$. So instead, DBH humored me and we ate a wonderful dinner at Bottega:

(well, wonderful except for the group of lawyers they sat us next too- "We're such big Alabama fans, we can't name any coaches other than Saban OR any players!)
And we rounded out the evening with a walk around the Tutwiler Hotel- it was under renovation when we stayed there after the wedding and we didn't take any pictures because, well, that and that's the only point in my life when I was too tired to take any more pictures- so we took a few last night:



**Fourth Anniversary Gift: Linen= incredibly cute Victoria Secret PJs for me
Appliance= surround sound speakers for the den for Will (HELLO, FOOTBALL PARTIES!!!

Guess I'll work on a honeymoon and wedding recap post later this weekend... we're supposed to have our annual watching-of-the-wedding-DVD tonight so I'm sure I'll notice something else I'll want to document... happens every year... :)