1462 Days

Four years goes by so quickly.......

Husband and wife

First anniversary

I was about seven months pregnant with Lucy. We left Arianna with our neighbor so that we could go to Ruth's Chris for dinner (which is kind of "our place" since Jon took me there on our second date. On our first date, I paid for his food. I point this out only because it drives him crazy that I did it.)

Second anniversary

Um, yea....sadly, I don't have a photo of us on our second anniversary. We didn't end up going out or doing anything because the kids were both sick and with Jon's crazy work schedule, we never got a chance to make up for it. Hooray for two years of marriage though!

Third anniversary

I was seven months pregnant with Ruby. Ari and Lucy stayed with Uncle Bob and Aunt JoAnn while we went to Ruth's Chris again and had our entire meal paid for by Sean Hannity (he's a friend of Jon's.)

❤FOUR YEARS❤

In the past year, we suffered the loss of a beloved family member, welcomed a new baby, became HMX/Marine 1 "survivors" (though it was not NEARLY as bad as people made it out to be), got through two months of Recruiter's School, made a cross country move, bought a house, and survived the first month and a half of the dreaded "first year of recruiting!" I am so fortunate to have found my lover, my best friend, my soulmate, and the calm to my storm. I love this man and I can't imagine growing old with anybody else.

Ruby's birth

AZ vacation

On my birthday

The day after Jon got back from Recruiter's School

4th of July

Checking out of Quantico

One of our first few days in Arizona

Headed to church

The photo above is the most recent one I have of us together since I currently only get to see him about once a week, but that will be changing VERY soon as......WE ARE NOW HOMEOWNERS!!!!! We closed today and picked up the keys. We are having the carpet replaced and as soon as that's done, we will be able to move in (fingers crossed for sometime next week and photos will be coming soon). We can't wait to get up there so that he can actually come home every night and our family can be together again. I can't wait to see what the coming year brings to our marriage!

366 Days/29w6d

Our first anniversary celebration was lovely!

We actually celebrated the gift part of it last Sunday because we were both too impatient to wait. I had bought Jon's gift while I was on vacation and was eager for him to open it. Plus he was scheduled to go on a trip and I wanted him to have it with him in case he went anywhere nice.

Our gifts

I went first. (Excuse my hair, I had just showered.)


I have been wanting to start a Tiffany's charm bracelet!


Jon's turn!

He bought a Tommy Bahama sport watch right after we got married, but he's been wanting a nicer one. Interesting tidbit that I just learned yesterday.....I knew that the "traditional" gift for a first anniversary is paper. I tried to think of something paper to get for Jon and I just couldn't come up with anything that I knew he really wanted so I decided to forgo tradition and just get him the watch. Out of curiosity though, I wanted to know what the traditional gifts for the second, third, fourth, etc anniversaries were. I found this table and saw that while the traditional first anniversary gift is paper, the modern first anniversary gift is clocks! So I still did ok with the watch, haha!

Someone else decided to follow the paper tradition though! Friday afternoon, this arrived from my parents:

New cookbook!

Another common tradition is to freeze the top tier of your wedding cake and eat it on your first anniversary. Our top tier survived for about eight months. We left it in Jon's parents' freezer after the wedding and dug into it while we were home in May. I thought it was still delicious, Jon thought it tasted like freezer burn. We just tossed it out after that since I'm not sure how much longer it would have lasted and either way, we're not in Arizona to enjoy it. I realized too late that I should have gone to a bakery and had a special top layer of a cake made for us to eat. By the time I thought about doing it, I don't know that any bakeries would have had time so I just picked up a cake from the store.

We exchanged some small gifts since we had already exchanged our "big" gifts.

My flowers from Jon

The card I got for Jon


Jon's gift

All week Jon had been telling me that he had another surprise for me that would be revealed on our anniversary. All he would tell me was that the purchase was technically for him, but that it would surprise me......

He bought a suit!

I loved the suit, but Arianna told him he looked "so weird." She also thought his dress shoes were tap shoes, haha.


You can't see it in my expression, but this is me thrilled that my dress from the 2008 Marine Corps still fits at almost eight months pregnant. Comfortably too!

Jon and I had arranged childcare with one of our neighbors so that we could enjoy a nice evening out at one of our favorite places. I mentioned in the last entry that our first date was at Ruth's Chris Steak House so what better way to celebrate our first year of marriage than to go back to where it all began!

Fresh bread and butter


Wine (for Jon)


Filet (Jon got a ribeye), garlic mashed potatoes, and fresh asparagus


and dessert!

Our meal was perfect and we just had a beautiful evening. I couldn't have asked for a better, more romantic anniversary and I can't wait to celebrate our second! I feel so blessed and fortunate to be with such a wonderful man :)