365 days

Well, we did it. We survived the first year of marriage. Phew. I think the craziest thing of all about this is now we are in the second year. We can't say the cutesies little Oh, we just got married last summer! bit anymore. We are living in year two (Okay, now you may roll your eyes. Drama queen newlywishwed, over here). 

We decided that since we live in an awesome place (that's not being cocky, that's just being factual) that we would do a lil staycation and enjoy downtown Charleston. What's not to enjoy about staying in a hotel smack dab in the middle of downtown, walking across the street for dinner reservations, and walking down 3 more blocks for dessert and celebratory drinks? The answer is...everything about that is completely enjoyable. 

And it was completely enjoyable. 

We contemplated just moving in because I mean, exposed brick! Plus Freddie's name was already on the bed so dibs and all that.

The bathroom was ginormous and a half but I always feel weird taking pictures of bathrooms. Like, Wow! A toilet! Living the high life. So I didn't take any pictures of the bathroom, but just remember: ginormous. And a half. And yes, there was a toilet. 

It's probably a good thing that Freddie and I don't have cable because we would literally have no friends. And not because we would be in front of the TV all the time and ditch all our friends, but more so because we watch the most ridiculous eclectic shows ever when we sit down in front of cable. I think everyone would disown us. For example, we spent our anniversary staycation TV time watching Lockup, a show that gives you an inside look at prisons all over the US. You really get to know the prisoners. I mean, like whoa. This one guy was the epitome of annoying. It reminded me of some of the games my younger students play except they can get away with it because they are 1 foot tall and cute. This guy was not 1 foot tall and not cute. And I'll stop talking now.

Except I won't.

We managed to pry away from Lockup to put on some fancy clothes.
Story time: We were trying to get a self-timer picture in our room which meant we had a chair on the bed with pillows stacked on it to give it some height. Someone knocked on our door. We opened the door and the maid asked if we would like turndown service. We said no, thank you and as she turned to leave we quickly asked her to take a picture for us. Maid then saw chair/pillow/camera on top of bed set-up and probably wanted to run away from the crazy shenanigans she thought were going on. However, she took us outside and played paparazzi. The end. 

Dinner was delicious and approximately 30 steps away from the door to our hotel room. Ugh, Charleston. Stop making me love you even more. It's really unhealthy. Is everyone chanting Food pics! Food pics! yet? Okay, I'll oblige. 

After dinner we did what any normal Oh-my-gosh-I-still-can't-believe-we-live-in-Charleston couple would do and walked down to the water to watch the sunset.

The rest of the evening included watching a marionette karaoke show (yes, that is correct), dessert bars, and more Lockup (obvi).

Sunday, our real anniversary, was spent sleeping in, eating brunch, walking everywhere under the sun, living room fort building, and visiting the Angel Oak. 

Oh yeah, and eating old old cake. 

And you just officially lived through our first anniversary weekend with us. How sweet.

Year Two, don't worry. We've got this under control. Freddie, don't worry. I've got this wife thing under control (HA!). I sure do love you, your sexy dancer legs, and especially your contagious laughter. 

on not writing wedding vows

This week is kind of a big deal. I mean yes, my classes started back up and I'm teaching all the children. And yes, it actually didn't rain this past weekend which meant beach, beach, beach and more beach time. 

But this week takes the cake because it is leading up to...

drumroll, please.

...our first anniversary. 

Any excuse is a good excuse when you want an excuse to use a wedding picture. 

Son of a summer nutcracker. How did we get here so quickly? I mean, let's take a trip through the bloggity world time hop and you'll see that I was writing about wedding vows this time last year. See?

But enough about that. Because while I could literally sit here for hours thinking of clever ways to say, "Time flies when you're having fun, amiright?!" or "Holy Shittake Mushroom, one year feels like one month!" And other stuff like that, we'll save all that wit for after our weekend anniversary celebrations.

In the meantime, just know that this picture sums up life lately.

Deep sigh-ahhhh.

Sometimes ya just need a good 'ole beach sunset picture, no filter style, to help you take a deep breath and relax. 

Now, how many champagne toasts are acceptable to celebrate a wedding anniversary? Because we're thinking of averaging about 5 toasts per day this weekend...

a propose-iversary of sorts

Well, shoot. It has just been a hot minute since I posted anything gushy mushy sappy wappy about my Freddiefriendhusband, hasn't it? Let's change that now. 

Monday marked our one year engage-iversary (now doesn't that sound silly? Hmm, what about one year since Freddie proposed-iversary? No? They all sound silly? Moving on). April 28, 2013 was a day when my left ring finger got a lil heavier and my life got a whole lot lighter. Lighter because my love for Freddie is so high, maybe? Man, apologies for this entire paragraph. 

How in the whole wide freakin' world has a year passed since then? I still remember so many little details. So many of the crazy happy emotions. So many of the endlessly long glances at my finger. But there's also a lot I'm sure I've forgotten. I am desperately trying to cling on to every last little memory I can squeeze outta that day. Like the most obvious memory of...me being the dumbest person.

There. I said. I was the dumbest person on April 28, 2013. Being a good blogger stalker, I have read many a proposal story online. 9 times out of 10 there's usually the line about I had an idea it would happen that night so I made sure I painted my nails. Or I made sure I looked really nice. Or He was so nervous! I was just waiting for it to happen. My story has none of those lines in it. My nails were not painted. HORRORS! My students had performances all day so my "nice" outfit consisted of an all black ensemble since I was working backstage. Nope, not the glam black ensemble you are picturing. More like a black leggings and an oversized black shirt ensemble. Very in style in the working-backstage-world. 

Now that I'm on this side of the proposal I can see there were a lot of signs that night. Signs so obvious that the universe might as well have had a big ole fat neon glowing finger pointing down at each moment. But I had on my anti-big ole fat neon glowing universe finger sunglasses so that's obviously why I didn't see any of them...

Sign #1

We had been talking about marriage and engagement for awhile. I was gearin' and ready to be married and living in South Carolina. So when Freddie insisted we have a special night to ourselves and go out somewhere nice I just thought he was happy to see me. Because ya know, long distance sucks and who doesn't want to celebrate being together by going to a fancy wine bar? 

Sign #2

April showers bring May flowers. April in Georgia is usually rainy, but fairly warm. Like hey, 80 degree weather already. April 28, 2013 was neither extremely rainy nor cool, yet Frederick wore his rain jacket the entire night. Even as he helped load up heavy scenery pieces after my kid's show. Even when inside said fancy schmany wine bar. 

Purple teeth and rain coats make for the more dapper night out attire. Everyone wave to Freddie's left sleeve pocket. Otherwise known as The Ring's Hiding Spot. 

Sign #3

This is the part in the proposal story where other girls might say they could see how nervous their significant other was and knew something big was about to happen. This is the part in our proposal story where I am singing and dancing around the room and didn't notice how extremely nervous my significant other was. I can't help it---give me a few glasses of wine and a good Spotify station and I'm good to go. I can rewrite lyrics for you. I can choreograph some new hawt dance moves for you. The possibilities are endless. So as Freddie grew extremely quiet around my loud-mouthed dancing self (which hey, it isn't that strange for Freds to stand there quietly and let me get the crazy moves out of my system) I wasn't aware that every time he kept pulling me in for a hug he was holding the ring behind my head trying to get up the courage to get down on one knee. And he kept pulling me in for hugs... 

So Monday night, April 28, 2014, in the 30 minutes between work and my rehearsal that we got to spend together, we sat down and just laughed. We laughed about how it felt like Freddie must have given me a script that night with how well everything worked out. We laughed at how dumb I was. We laughed at how this all means we are 4 months away from being married for a year (because laughing is better than freaking out about it, obviously). 

Boy oh boy, Freddie-o! I am so happy you decided not to wait to propose after you got the ring because that night is forever engraved in my mind as one of the most wonderful nights of my life. And I've had a lot of wonderful days and nights with you soooo kind of a big deal that I can pinpoint one down like that ;)

Didn't get enough proposal goodness from this post? Because one can never have too much proposal goodness. Check out the real proposal story here.