Celebrating Six Years + Anniversary Gifts

Over the weekend my husband and I celebrated six years of marriage. We’ve been together for one decade, and have lived in two countries and two states (soon to be three states). We’ve gone on dozens, if not hundreds, of road trips, and we love traveling together—it’s our favorite. Despite some silly fights here and there, I’m thankful we can say we’ve laughed more than we’ve argued. He’s my better half, and the part that keeps me calm and anchored; not to mention, he’s an amazing, patient, and hands-on father to our two girls. Marrying my husband 2,194 days ago was pretty much a really great idea. So to celebrate our anniversary, we hired a babysitter and had a lovely evening out!

Image courtesy of Kim Jackson Photography

We had dinner at a new-to-us restaurant called Dovetail about 30 minutes from where we live, and it was fantastic. In a true farm-to-table sense, they have a chalkboard sign right when you walk in explaining where all of the food is from around the state, and then our waiter filled us in on the finer details of where individual parts of our meal came from (the rabbit I had, for example, was from a farm up in north Georgia). We’re going to go back there (for brunch, I hope), so I’ll take more pictures and then do a local eats review on them, because everybody needs to know about this place.

Several years ago we started the tradition of buying each other gifts on our anniversary. It takes the stress away from trying to get things before our actual anniversary, and with so much going on in the month of February (Madilyn’s birthday, Valentine’s Day, my blogiversary, etc.), it’s pretty easy to forget. So here’s what we do: we both go into the same store, and we each have $20 to spend on each other. The trick is to navigate the aisles without seeing each other so we don’t spoil the surprise. We set a specific time to meet out front, and then we go home and open our gifts! No wrapping, no pre-ordering anything, just on-the-spot shopping for each other.

This year we decided to shop at T.J. Maxx, because we love that store and they have a pretty good smattering of stuff to buy. Although I will say that $20 doesn’t get you very far there!

What I got him:

• A new “California casual” t-shirt for our new adventure in a few months.
• Some wood touch-up markers (because T.J. Maxx doesn’t really have a ton of “manly” stuff, and that was the best I could find that would also fit in the allotted budget!) (plus, we actually have a few pieces of furniture around the house that could benefit from these markers. win/win)
• A cheesy mug…because we’re cheesy (and because I wouldn’t mind drinking out of it either)

What he got me:

• A turquoise and chevron magazine rack! (excellent, because I probably would’ve seen it there and wanted it, but decided I didn’t actually need it, so it would’ve stayed there. That’s why this tradition of ours is so much fun!)
• A Paris travel mug…because Paris (and coffee) is always a good idea

I know I’ve said this before, but I’m loving our time together as a couple. Since we’re kinda new to dating, we haven’t branched out much as far as our dates go (we usually just have dinner out—but seriously, dinner without kids is AMAZING), but I think I’m going to start looking for some fun activities for us to do on our dates. It was fun sitting there with him thinking about what our life will be like next year when we’re in California. Maybe a breakfast date on the beach will be in order? Only time will tell!