Our 1 Year Anniversary: A Recap of our 1st Year

Immediately after the wedding, AJ and I headed to Waikiki for our honeymoon. Originally, we were going to the Dominican Republic to spend a week at an all-inclusive resort, but it cost less to go to Hawaii, and the travel time on the way back from the DR was almost 36 hours. But do you know how long it takes to get to Hawaii from the East Coast? To: about 18 hours. From: About 22 hours. That's a long time to be traveling. We had a blast though. I just wish we had done more while we were there, but we were pretty strapped for cash.

Fourth of July weekend, we had some friends come into town from Florida, and they brought their new Golden Retriever, Bella. She was 8 weeks, and AJ & I (okay, mainly I) fell in love with her. I decided that day that I wanted a puppy (what better way to curb the baby fever). AJ & I went home, scoured the internet, and found a litter of 6 week old chocolate & black Labs about two hours from our home. The next day, we went out, dropped way too much money, and came home with Costa.

We also have embraced our roles as homeowners, and our hard work can be seen here. We've learned how quickly appliances break, how much insurance and taxes can cost, and how small this house can seem with two furbabies and two people.

We hosted our first birthday party (so far the one and only, I'm too embarrassed that our house still isn't finished).

We took our first family vacation as a married couple to the Outer Banks. AJ got sick and missed most of the fun. We took Costa, who was only 10 weeks at the time, and was in her "bite anything and everything" phase. 

AJ was able to help me participate in my first craft festival. It wasn't quite as profitable as I'd hoped, but AJ was a good sport, helping me whenever I needed it.

We chased the Tigers together, and watched them lose to Georgia Tech in the ACC Championship. (Marriage definitely has it's benefits. When you're traveling with a big group of people, you're almost always guaranteed to end up with a bed, just because you're married. :-))

We learned all about splitting holidays between families. It's worked out well for us so far. With no children, we didn't really need as much time for "our" Christmas, so we were able to spend most of our time at our families' houses.

We showed our old grown up side when we partied for New Years with our college friends and wound up at home by 11:45. I'm pretty sure I was asleep when the ball dropped. And we're only 23. I'm scared of what's going to happen in 10, 20 years!

In February, we experienced our first "blizzard." To be honest, I was pretty worried our house wouldn't know how to handle it, but we came through great. Granted, our electric bill was astronomical, but, it was cheaper than paying for a new heat pump!

Which brings us to this spring: our 1 year anniversary! Our year was relatively uneventful (which was probably a good thing)! If the first year of marriage is supposed to be the hardest one, I think we survived it pretty well. I can count on one hand the number of times we've had serious arguments. Looking back, I'm pretty sure the only thing we argued about was money (no surprise there, psychology textbooks), because everyone just has those days where they wake up and go, "Whoa. We're broke." Okay, let me correct that. I have those days. AJ's a pretty go with the flow guy. But, we survived. And I'm sure we'll survive plenty more.