Happy Anniversary to my amazing husband!

Two years ago today I said "I do" to my best friend!

I still get chills thinking about that amazing day and how beautiful it was to be able to share it with all of the people we love so much. I feel incredibly lucky to have found Hank, and everyday I reflect on what an amazing partner he is. Kind, loving, compassionate, fun, so incredibly handsome...he is truly the best person I've ever met in my life and I'm truly PROUD to call him my husband.
















If you'd like to read more about our wedding, my friend Melissa featured it on her wedding blog awhile back. Click here to head over to The Loveliest Day.

We celebrated our first anniversary last year at the beach in New Jersey. It was at the beginning of our three-week East Coast trip, and it was such a perfect day. I can't wait for our anniversary trip to Hawaii, and to spend another romantic week with my husband in celebration of our marriage.









Happy Anniversary to us! ;)

Valentine's Day!

I love this holiday, not just because I'm in love, but because I feel so blessed to have so many people in my life that are parts of my heart. Hank is obviously my number one squeeze, but I have a deep love for so many of my friends, and on days like today I really love to think about them and send them little happy thoughts out into the universe. Can you feel them? I just sent one to you!

Hank and I are pretty mushy-gushy silly every day (although only in private, we are not a PDA kinda couple at all), so Valentine's Day is kind of just another day, but I really, really love any excuse to get all dolled up and go out to dinner! In the spirit of today, I thought I would link you over to "our story," so if you'd like to read how we met, click here to head over to that post.

Tonight was really fun evening. Hank got off work around 5pm, and we took some silly photos and headed over to Taj Mahal for a lovely dinner date. We love Indian food, and Taj is our favorite Indian place in town. We arrived around 6pm and were seated right away. We had a great time enjoying a slow, leisurely dinner and delicious food. Afterward we came home and got into pjs, I whipped up a quick batch of brownies, and we've been lounging around being comfy and cozy. Unfortunately Hank has to go to bed soon, because he works in the morning...but I have off tomorrow! I'm not too sure how I want to spend my day. I'm thinking maybe some antique browsing? I still need to go see Dear John too, so perhaps I can persuade one of my girlfriends to see it with me.

What did you do for Valentine's Day? Did you go to dinner or cook something at home? Did you spent it with a loved one or with good friends? Or, did you treat yourself to a quiet night at home? Whatever you did, I hope you had a great time. :)

Have a beautiful evening, I'll sign off tonight with photos...

Valentine's outfit-
dress: Nanette Lepore
necklace: Anthropologie
shoes: Target



Hank actually let me take an "outfit" photo of him! hahahah. He is too cute, and doesn't like this one bit. He also had just gotten off work, so don't mind the semi-crinkled shirt. ;)

shirt: Penguin
belt: Ben Sherman
pants: H&M
shoes: Vans







The last "LOOK AT MY NEW TATTOO" photo you'll see...this week ;) haha. juust kidding.


Valentine's manicure- OPI's "You Don't Know Jacques!" Matte color






heading to dinner!






Okay, how cute is this!? Hank actually made me this foldout card...the writing is on the other side. There's a lot of cute detail to it and it just about melted my heart.


Here's the card I got for him...from Allmighty.com! :)


One of my Valentine's presents from Hank- "a rose that never dies"


#6 in my collection! :)

Wednesday

I feel like I've been so busy lately, and I am literally counting down until the weekend! My darling Autumn and her family have finally moved home to Arizona, and I cannot even express how happy I am to have them so much closer than California. They just moved into their new home in North Scottsdale this past weekend, so I am heading down Friday to spend time with them. Autumn's daughter Chloe is my goddaughter and I'm stoked I get to be a lot more present in her life! They are expecting their second baby on Valentine's Day and I can't wait to meet the little guy. I think the rest of our gal pals will be hanging out too and I'm super excited. Then Saturday morning I'm going with my sister and the ladies in our/Abe's family to check out the wedding venue they're interested in. If you know me, you know I love love love event planning, so I am looking forward to helping out, and being the best "Matron of Honor" there ever was. The day after Laur got engaged I was already researching colors and ideas for her, and getting together bridal shower brainstorming sheets. I'm such a nerd. After we get done with wedding stuff I'll be heading over for a much needed little day with Sar when she gets off work. Dinner, hangouts...and I'm getting to meet my little "niece," Suki's new puppy! Sar and her boyfriend Andy adopted a beautiful little red-nose/staffy girl and she looks like such an angel...see?




Sarah and I had a nice long little text-talk last night about some stuff that's been going on, and as always she is the most supportive friend in the whole world. We always joke that we know each other better than we know ourselves and it's so true that it's crazy. That's what happens when you've gone through such crazy things together, for close to a decade. I love her. It's such a beautiful thing to have someone in your life who knows every single little detail about everything, seen you in every phase and every stage of life, good and bad, and loves you all the same. I was emailing with my friend Emily today, and she wrote something that really struck me (Em if you read this I hope you don't mind I throw in a little quote)- but she said "As I have gotten older, I have definitely learned to embrace the uniqueness of each and every female friendship in my life. It's like each woman I am friends with, plays such a distinct and huge role in her own way - it's pretty cool." This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've always been surrounded by awesome females. I really cherish the fact that as I've gotten older, I've been able to keep a lot of my friends from the past that have kind of grown with me, and also make some new, awesome friends that have brought so many wonderful things to my life. I have close friends at work, I have great friends from high school, I have friends that grew up in Prescott, I have my "best" friends I've known forever and ever. Each of these women are so different, and the older I get the more I realize that each person I meet does in fact play a distinct role, like my wonderful friend Emily so eloquently stated. As I move into this next phase of my life, things change a bit. In fact, I've already felt them change, just from thinking about where we want to be in the next year or two. Things that were important aren't so important anymore. My priorities and the way I spend my time has shifted. And as I change, the women in my life will also be changing. It's interesting to think of the places we will all be at in a year, and it's neat to know I have all of these amazing personalities and souls to fit into every aspect of my life. I'm grateful.

Tonight has been a good night. Hank and I have been having little "date nights" every night this week, which makes my heart so full. Now that he is working a full schedule at work and school (thankfully this semester won't begin until the end of this month) we have to really make time for each other during the weekdays, since he gets home around 5 , and then has school and music/design stuff to do. It's insane, so every second of my time after I get off work is devoted to enjoying each other's company! I definitely miss the days of getting home from work and laying around all night without a care in the world, but this is a new phase, and although things are different, they are also so exciting! So tonight when Hank got off work we headed to the gym for a workout, and then we did dinner at home and watched Biggest Loser until he had to go to practice. I just finished up some necessary grading, and when I wrap up this post I will be reading a bit then heading to sleep as well. Tomorrow I am hanging out with my darling Amber Joy and I'm so happy! I haven't seen her for a couple of days with all the craziness of the week, and she leaves Friday, and I'm so, so glad we get one more hangout in.

I hope all of you had a great day! I'll leave you with a couple of photos from today's outfit. I added a cardigan to this dress to make it work (tattoo) appropriate. Have a wonderful night!

Hey darling husband, I love you!

I wanted to make a special post dedicated to my very best friend.

He is the most patient person I know, often putting up with my emotional ups and downs, my silly ideas, and my "just one more picture, pleeeease" moods.

He is my big spoon, my foot warmer, the place I lay my head at night.

He's the hand I reach for when I cross the street, the eyes I look to during the saddest and funniest parts of movies, the side I nudge when we find secret humor in an ordinary thing.

He is my food taster, my baked goods sampler, my soup stirrer.

I feel lucky, so lucky, that we found each other in this whole, wide world. Sometimes I wonder how it is even possible, but then I try to stop thinking about things so much and just be. I'm so thankful.

He is my best friend.

Everything is sweeter because of him, and I am so grateful to call him my husband.

I love you Hank!

home sweet home

Today was a very, very trying day at work. For my new readers, I am a high school English teacher, teaching four sections of 10th graders and one section of 12th graders. I normally love my job, and rarely have discipline problems or any reason to dislike my work day. Today though, was one of those rare horrible days. I don't want to get into it (those of you who saw my tweets earlier, before I erased them, know a bit of what happened). I just feel like it may be a bit unethical/unprofessional to discuss child-related issues in a public forum. Hence the deleted tweets. Just know that a student said horrible things to me and the situation escalated (not by my own doing), and it was just a bad, bad day. Luckily I am at home now, but tomorrow I will have to deal with all of this with the administration and child. I am very proud of myself with how I handled it, and so are the other adults who witnessed it, so that's a plus. My head hurts though, from the crying I did (not in front of the student mind you!), and my heart hurts that someone could be that cruel. Regardless though, I was upset at the time, and when it escalated further after school I was more upset, but I refuse to let it affect me anymore. I came home to a huge hug from Hank and mac and cheese cooked by my darling. What could be better? So now I'm just trying to shake it off and get back to my happy self. I will say that I although I do love my job because I don't deal with things like this a lot, I recognize that some instructors do deal with situations like this quite frequently. So my hats off to them! Teaching can be a trying, tough profession that wears on you emotionally. I will admit though, that knowing I won't work after we have children makes my job a little happier...knowing there is an end point to this. Sounds silly, but although I like/love my job, I couldn't imagine doing it more than a few more years.

So. In other news, Hank leaves for a very, very small tour this Thursday. I was going to go along but decided to be responsible and not take off so many days during my Senior's presentations. Besides, a certain best friend's birthday trip is coming up and I need to use days then. We get ten days off per year, in addition to all the paid time for holidays (it's a pretty sweet deal), and the days roll over. Some veteran teachers have hundreds! I personally like to use them all every year. ha. So anyway, I'm sad he's leaving but he'll have a blast. Friday I am having a girly sleepover with Suki, and then Saturday it's shopping with Shirley and dinner with her, Alana and Erin. Sunday is family day, and Nanny's birthday. I'm so excited to see all of my friends and have some good, solid hangout time. It's also nice to stay busy when Hank is gone. When he gets home there are going to be lots of changes taking place and I'm very very excited about all of them. It's so great to open new chapters in life, and to be able to look with optimism at the future. And that's where we are...it's a great place to be!

As for right now, I am going to be a lazy little thing and continue to rest in bed. I may watch a movie or I may nap. It sounds silly but I am emotionally exhausted and need a little break. Gym later for sure though.

Happy Monday, everyone. xo