Celebrating 20 years together

In January Evan and I celebrated 20 years together since we started dating by spending a few days in Boston! I had to go there for work, and my parents were nice enough to come to our house to watch the kids so that Evan could join me. Since I had client visits to do during the day, we didn't spend the whole time together, but that was ok as Evan has colleagues in the area and he was able to go work with them.

We were able to do a couple of fun things, in addition to working! We had a free few hours on one afternoon, and at my colleague's recommendation we checked out a place called the Mapparium. It's in the Mary Baker Eddy Library (founder of Christian Science), and is a 1/35 scale glass sphere of the world as it looked in 1935. You walk through it, and the room is completely silent...it's just really cool. They don't allow photos inside, so we took this selfie at their "selfie wall" outside.

 

Definitely a cool thing to do that I'd never heard of before, and am glad we saw!

I had also made us a reservation at Ostra for dinner - wow, it was delicious! And who doesn't love an excuse to dress up? Evan surprised me with flowers delivered to our hotel room as well.

 

We were early leaving for dinner, so we went to Top of the Hub to have a drink before dinner. Beautiful views of Boston!

Dinner was absolutely delicious - I even loved their horseshoe crab plates!

Evan had sneakily told them that it was our anniversary, so this is how my dessert came out. So nice!

We were supposed to stay through the weekend, and spend all day Saturday with Evan's brother and his family. Unfortunately, a giant snow storm was coming through and Friday evening our Sunday flight was already cancelled. I had thought ahead, and managed to get us on early morning flights on Saturday. It was good that we were able to get home, but we were really sad to lose the whole day with them! We made the best of the one night that we got, but we were bummed to miss the time with family. Hopefully we can get back up there soon.

Janniversary Trip to Wintergreen

For the first time in over a year, Evan and I were able to get a weekend away together, just the two of us! We chose to make this happen for our Janniversary; 2015 marks 16 years! After discussing a few options, we decided on heading to a local ski resort. There are a few options...but we decided on Wintergreen Ski Resort in Nelson, since it's not far away, pretty inexpensive, and where I grew up! I hadn't been back to Wintergreen since college, and at the foot of the mountain is Evan's favorite brewery (Wild Wolf), so it worked out well for both of us!

My lovely coworker Brooke offered to watch the kids for us for the weekend...so amazing of her! I told her not offer or we'd take her up on it...but she was happy to do it, and the kids had a blast with her. It meant we could go away for the weekend with no concerns!

We arrived late on Friday, and really only had Saturday there for our activities, but we fit a lot into that one day! We started off by sleeping in a bit, but also enjoying the sun coming up over the mountains. Check out the view from our balcony of the ski resort! (For more lovely sunrise photos, click HERE)

 We decided not to ski this trip, as we wanted to spend a lot of time relaxing. So instead, we bought a 90 minute ticket to "The Plunge" for some snow tubing. It was SO MUCH FUN! As you can see, there are about 10 lanes, and over our 90 minutes we were able to go 8 or 9 times. I absolutely loved it, and we can't wait to take the kids next year!

 A little selfie before we got on the tubing, and a shot of Evan on his tube in front of me as we're about to go down the hill!

 

This was the first time I've really wished for a GoPro camera to strap to me. I wanted to take a video of us going down the hill, and luckily I was able to use my iPhone, but I was definitely nervous about dropping it! Here we are on a couple of our runs. You can hear in this me shout "Holy cow!" on the second hill (the steep one) - that one got my stomach! Luckily I remembered I was filming and didn't shout what I really wanted to shout!

In this one, we went down a run with a less steep second drop (that was the biggie on each hill), but we actually ended up going farther at the end, despite going more slowly than we did the first time.

And then I thought to do one filming myself...some of my faces amuse me :)

We then enjoyed a quick lunch, followed by our nice relaxing afternoon at the Wintergreen spa! Lounging while reading, pedicures for both of us, the sauna...yeah, that works!

Then we got ready for a nice dinner at one of the restaurants there. Before we headed out...check out the lovely sunset!

At dinner, they gave us free champagne because it was our anniversary!

 And I had a super yummy dessert.

We then ended our evening with a trip to Wild Wolf Brewery so Evan could enjoy his favorite beer.

Sunday we took a leisurely drive back, but got back home by early afternoon so that Brooke didn't lose her entire weekend! It was a great way to get some time together, and we are now excited to take the kids there next year.

A Janniversary weekend!

I"d been doing so well on blog posts for 2014, averaging one every 2 days, which is a lot better than I'd been doing in 2013! Then, of course, I traveled for work last week, and now it's been 5 days since a post. Ah, well - it's going to happen when I'm not around. This week's trip was even better than some, though, as I not only got to go to NYC for three days, but I also got to take Evan with me! My trip coincided with our "Janniversary" (this year we celebrated 15 years of being together!), so Evan took a couple of days off of work and we headed up to NYC together.

I spent all day Thursday and Friday working (everywhere from 168th street at Columbia Medical Center, to a 60 minute drive from NYC to Hofstra University on Long Island), while Evan wandered around the city sightseeing. I had some really great appointments while I was there, but I was of course jealous of his time to go anywhere! Not only that, but I spent Friday mostly in one room at Columbia University hosting a product meeting while the weather was absolutely beautiful. When we had time together to walk around on Saturday morning, before leaving, the weather was of course gross (heavy clouds and periodic snow/drizzle). I did get a few photos as we walked along the High Line, an old railroad track turned walkable park/garden/public space.

We celebrated our Janniversary, which was on Friday. We went to a delicious dinner at Thalia in midtown, which was just a few blocks from our hotel. I was fortunate to find a really great hotel at 47th and Broadway, in the heart of Times Square that was very inexpensive! Yay for traveling there in January - I'm sure that same hotel last month was double the price. So, we went to dinner and then headed to Chelsea for an improv show at the Upright Citizens Brigade. We'd been there a couple of times years ago when we lived in NYC, and now Evan has a friend from UVa who's in a show there, and she got us comped tickets with roped-off seats! Very nice of her, and we bought her a drink afterwards to say thank you. It was hysterically funny ("The Stepfathers" is the name of the group/show) - I highly recommend!

In addition to walking the highline on Saturday, we also did a little shopping. Evan needed a new winter coat, so we picked one up for him at Macy's Herald Square. He'd also been thinking about buying me a new necklace as a Janniversary present, but I told him I really didn't want any new jewelry right now - for less money, I could get a nice purse which I would appreciate and use more! We found a Coach bag at Macy's as well, and it's so lovely! They are totally worth the money, especially when on 25% off, and an additional 15% off for using my Macy's card :) I'm almost afraid to take it places and risk it getting dirty!!

On top of that, Evan surprised with something very romantic - a new computer! It may not seem romantic, but it was so sweet of him to go check out the ones on sale at Best Buy, take me there, and let me pick out the one that would work best for me. I was in desperate need of a new laptop - my old one was about 6 years old and was SO unhappy with me for making it edit photos. I got a blue screen of death almost every time I turned it off. This new one runs Windows 8, which I've been trying to figure out on and off since last night, and I think I've got it mostly down. It's just so much faster! Can't wait to get Lightroom 5 installed tonight (which is also an updated version, so more new things to learn) and get to editing some photos!

What about the kids, you ask? Carrie so wonderfully volunteered to come here and stay with them while we were gone. She did so great, and the kids had a blast with her, which we were never in doubt about. I"m so glad they got to spend that time together, and I know they all look forward to doing it again soon. She sent us some cute photos of the kids (and Calla, who was her shadow the entire time!) to make us not miss them too much!

Finally, over the past week we've bought some new Ikea furniture for the house. We badly needed something to organize our basement - we had no shelf to put the cable box, Wii, Nintendo, and DVD player, so they were all in a rat's nest on the floor. Also, our shelves holding CDs and DVDs were overflowing, so we needed more space for them. Three new shelves from Ikea, and bam: 4 hours later, we had a newly organized basement! So much better. And I'm using the old DVD shelves to organize two places:  the spare closet where I keep my wrapping paper, tape, ribbons, bags, bows, etc; and the wardrobe cabinet where I keep all of my photography supplies. A Sunday well spent!

10th Anniversary Photo Shoot

...6 months later. Since I didn't get to post this near our 10 year anniversary, I thought I'd just wait until 6 months later. I missed it by one day!

For years, Evan has been asking me to put my wedding dress back on. Part of it was teasing, and part was serious. There was no way for a while there that I would have fit back into it (mostly for the year or so after having Henry). However, with the weight loss over the past 12-18 months, I thought I might actually be able to pull it off. I also remembered that our photographer, Blaire, had offered us a free re-shoot of our family photos from last fall, as she wasn't very happy with how they turned out. So, I had the idea to combine these two things into one: a family photo shoot where I wore my wedding dress! But not just me in my dress - Evan in his tux, Natalie in a fancy dress, and Henry in his suit. Blaire was excited at the concept, although she made it clear that she is not a wedding photographer. As I told her, this wasn't a wedding shoot, but a family shoot where we happened to be wearing our wedding finery! She was excited about the idea, and I was so excited to surprise Evan with this shoot as an anniversary present.

Our 10th anniversary happened to be on a Friday this year, so the timing was perfect. I brought Natalie in on the surprise a couple of weeks before, so she knew what fancy dress she would be wearing and what would be happening. I did end up having to tell Evan about 48 hours before, as I quickly realized there was no way for me to carry out all of the logistics myself. We met Blaire at Morven Park, as the setting there is just beautiful and we thought it would be ideal for this type of shoot. It was so much fun - I loved being able to take part in something so creative, even if I wasn't the one behind the camera!

 

 

 

 This shot is one of my favorites of the day. We brought our wedding album for Blaire to look through, and we really wanted to "recreate" this shot from it. I've got this photo blown up very large over our bed - I absolutely love it!

 This one is another recreation. In the middle of our wedding album, a shot very similar to this is on a two-page spread. Our wedding photographer actually submitted it to the Richmond Times Dispatch, where it won an award! I love Blaire's recreation as well.

 This path was begging for shots like this to be taken. So beautiful!

10 years, baby!

On this date, 10 years ago, Evan and I were married. He's been appropriately shmoopie (i.e. sweet) today, and I planned a pretty kick-ass surprise for him. Last fall we had family photos taken by Blaire at Second Avenue Photography, and she offered us a free reshoot at some point as she wasn't very happy with how the photos came out. We didn't take advantage of that through the winter, but back in February I had an idea - a  special shoot on our anniversary! Evan has always wanted to see me again in my wedding dress, but really - why would you put that back on, right? So I thought this would be a good opportunity: he wears his tux, I wear my wedding dress, we dress the kids up, and voila - fancy family photo shoot to celebrate our 10th anniversary!

Everything worked out great - I bought a dress for Natalie last month, and then brought her in on the secret. She did a great job keeping it between the two of us, and was so excited about the opportunity to dress up. I then purchased a suit for Henry from a Facebook group, and we were ready to go! I did have to let Evan in on the secret earlier this week, as I needed his help with some logistics. He then surprised me today by preparing this for our anniversary

 A bouquet of flowers each for Natalie and I to carry during the photos, and an anniversary cake for us to enjoy (almond pound cake, same as our wedding cake). So very sweet!

 Natalie has been looking forward to this all week; she loves dressing up! Here's a quick photo that I snapped of her before we headed out on our shoot.

Blaire (our photographer) thought the whole idea was fantastic and was very excited to do our special anniversary shoot. She posted one "sneak peek" tonight, also of Natalie - how beautiful was this location?! I can't wait to see the rest of them!

Our anniversary of a haircut

See what I did with that title there? It's a Before & After, like on Wheel of Fortune!

The first part: today is our anniversary - 6 years! I know it's not that long to some (like our parents), but it's long for us! We celebrated by...being incredibly lame.

Yesterday we went to Home Depot & bought a bunch of plants. I hung a couple on the front porch, and planted some pretty purple & yellow flowers in the front yard. I'll take a picture once this rain stops - while it's nice for the new plants, it's not so pretty for pictures!

Today, on our actual anniversary, we went to brunch at a new-ish place is Leesburg (Peppermill Grill American Bistro) that I had heard had good brunch. It was ok, not stellar. I wish Evan had enjoyed it more! My vanilla crepes were pretty good. And we both agreed they had very yummy cinnnamon bread.

We hung out at home for a bit, and then I went to a craft fair at the Dulles Expo Center with my friend Kathy & her mother-in-law. It was a nice time; relatively low-key as it was towards the end of the fair. I got a couple of cute things, including a nice picture frame. Now I have to choose what Natalie pictures to put in it!

So, the "after" part of my title. I was looking back at old posts, and realized that one year ago today was when I chopped off my hair! Wow!
It's stayed relatively short over the past year, although is starting to get longer now. I've decided to let it grow out some, so I'm glad that it's back to shoulder-length now. It's nice to be able to put my hair up in the summer time. I'm not sure I like myself with very long hair, but I think below the shoulders is nice. I do like the bangs (I didn't cut them until last fall), so that's an improvement over a year ago.

Our anniversary weekend!

Wow, what a busy weekend! Come to think of it, all of our weekends lately have been busy. Such is life!

On Friday night, my sister Carrie came up to visit from Richmond. She and I went out after Natalie went to bed for dessert and a drink to catch up for a bit. Here we are before we went out:

Then on Saturday we took Natalie to the mall for a while, and got some fun sister time in shopping. We then went and got haircuts at Cloud Nine Salon (if you're in Leesburg, I recommend them). We're both VERY happy with our hair. Unfortunately, we didn't take an after shot of both of us, but you'll see my new hair below.

Then, the reason Carrie really came up was that Saturday was my & Evan's 5 year anniversary! And what great years they've been. So, Carrie babysat for us while Evan and I went to dinner and a movie. Here we are before we left:

An adult evening - what a treat! We ate at Eiffel Tower Cafe, a WONDERFUL little French restaurant we found in downtown Leesburg. It was expensive, but since we never go out anymore one splurge is ok. And the food was delicious! We then went to the movies for the first time in months, which was really nice. Carrie took great care of her little niece, so we'll definitely be asking her to do that again. :)

Then today, after yummy breakfast (thanks Evan!), Carrie had to head home. Natalie and I then got all dressed up and went to our friend Alison's baby shower (her little boy is due June 30). We had a really good time, and Natalie was so good. Everyone commented on how she never cried, not once in over 2 hours. Apparently that's unusual in general, but I have to say that it's pretty normal for Natalie. We know we are so lucky to have such a good baby. I have a few pictures here from the shower, but unfortunately my camera battery died so I couldn't get many.