A Day to Celebrate

circa 2006

Happy birthday to my best friend of six and a half years. You are my love and my rock; you make me laugh all day long and love me like no other. Your birth is something to celebrate each and every day, but especially today. You also think I'm funny, which is awesome.  I love you. 

One Year

Yesterday husband and I spent the day celebrating our first year of marriage! It's so hard to believe it's been a year since that special day. Looking back it was all a blur, yet perfectly clear - it was all slow motion, but gone in the blink of an eye - truly unreal! I loved spending the day with husband and reminiscing about July 17, 2010.

We slept in and then headed up to Birmingham to do some shopping (aka, I got to pick out my one year anniversary gift - husband already got his a couple weeks ago) and just enjoying the day wandering around unknown territory.

From The Summit to downtown, we came across Vulcan Park and Museum. We had no clue it was on the route, but it was - so we stopped. We took the elevator to the top of the tower and looked out over Birmingham. 

 

We decided to take the stairs down - get in our exercise for the day. 

Then we headed into the museum. Husband loves history - me... I would never use the word love, appreciate it a bit more appropriate. So he read, I looked at pictures, and then he summed it all up for me. He's the best!

Then we hopped back on our route downtown and ended up at Five Points South. We had a late lunch at Fuego Cantina. It was pretty delicious. I meant to snap a photo of our food, but I was too hungry. 

So then we wandered a bit deeper into downtown. We found a cute little cobble-stone back road and we got out to take some pictures. There was an obnoxious number of pigeons in the road and I was encouraged to try to catch one. 

It was a great day - just the two of us, doing whatever we wanted! Expect some wedding photo reminiscing this week!

Six Years Ago

Husband and I never did the "check yes or no if you want to be my girlfriend" deal. We hung out for a while, knew we wanted to keep hanging out, and somewhere down the road started calling each other our boyfriend/girlfriend. Since we never deemed a particular day when we made it official, we always count our first kiss as the day we started dating. And that day was April 1st.

It was actually late at night/into the early morning April 1st. I had just gotten back from being a sponsor for a mission trip to Philadelphia. I think right before I left for the trip was when we really started developing feelings - because for the longest time all we both wanted was friendship. We talked and texted throughout my trip and when I got home (late) from the trip, we couldn't wait until the morning to see each other. We hung out for about an hour or two watching tv and laughing, and right before I went home we kissed. A memory that will forever be perfectly sketched in my heart.

Oh, how the years have flown by... Here are a couple photos from memory lane.

{our first NC State football game}

{celebrating husband getting accepted in to the NC State Engineering program}

 {on the way to the top of Mount Washington}

{Acadia National Park}

{with Spiderman at Universal Studios}

{skiing at Sunday River in Maine}

{at a wedding in Louisiana} 

Daily Threads: Love Song Playlist

{J Crew Ruffle Cami (similar), Merona Black Cardigan, F21 Red Skirt, Isaac Mizrahi T-Strap Pumps (similar)}

This may be my favorite look thus far in the challenge. I've been wanting to wear it for quite some time, but I had to find the will-power to be patient enough to wait and wear it for Valentine's Day. I love this look - it's simple, pulled together, and girly.

Husband made reservations for a late dinner. For the record, a delicious dinner and quality time together is a perfect Valentine's date for me. I'm simple - love is enough and I receive it all year long. Today is just a great excuse to get dressed up and eat somewhere nice - and we will totally be taking advantage of that!

If you are still without a gift for your significant other, something thoughtful doesn't take hours of planning. I love receiving something personal and thoughtful. My first birthday that I got to share with husband, when we first started dating, he gave me something made by him. We were both in college and between our morning classes we met at his Explorer, opened the back of it and sat there, and I opened my gifts. The two mixed CDs stand out most. They were songs I loved, songs he loved, and songs we loved together. I played those CDs out for months. And I still have them.

I thought I would share with you some songs about love and some lovely songs that we enjoy and that you can make into a CD for your special someone. 

Sweet Thing - Van Morrison

Hey Tonight - Will Hoge 

Beauty - The Shivers

Fade Into You - Mazzy Star

Someone Like You - Adele

Two - Ryan Adams

Last Request - Paolo Nutini

I and Love and You - The Avett Brothers

The Luckiest - Ben Folds

 Porcelain - Better Than Ezra

Sparks - Coldplay

Don't You Wanna Stay - Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson

Save Room - John Ledgend 

By the Way They Dance - Jump, Little Children

Push and Pull - Nikka Costa 

Hold You In My Arms - Ray LaMontagne 

Gymnopedie No. 1 - Erik Satie
John Mayer - St. Patrick's Day

BEV: First Dance

Since mentioning my wedding in the previous post, I've been thinking: I should share more of our special day. I started writing Bride's Eye View posts when I started my blog as a way to share thing I learned along the way of wedding planning. I've taken a detour away from those posts recently and it's time to get back to it. However, this time around I want to share more from our day. (Hope y'all don't mind!) 

First up: our first dance.

Our first dance as husband and wife. A quiet moment during such a big day. We closed our eyes, smiled, and enjoyed holding on to each other for a fleeting three minutes. David Gray sang to us. Took us back to that first year of falling in love. Days where we would jump in husband's Explorer, get lost on country roads, and listen to songs that were ours. This dance was one of my favorite moments of that day.

Some people are lyrics people and some are music people - we are both and neither. I can't explain it, if we like a song, we like it. That's it. Ultimately This Year's Love won, but Last Request and Two both were in the runnings. None of these songs are really songs celebrating love, but they are our songs - and that's all that mattered.

Friday Favorites

I have two today. One beauty related and one not. Let's start with the not.

Five-hour Energy shots. I feel like a lot of people are scared of these or somehow compare them to a Red Bull. No. Not at all like a RB. I've added the nutrition label to show that these aren't effective because of sugar - which means no crash. It's just a tiny shot pack-full with vitamins, and  a lot of them - thus the reason for lots of energy and no crash. Now, I'm no doctor, but I do know it's not that great to take in too much of a vitamin or nutrient because your body can't break down too many things in bulk. So I don't recommend these things for multiple daily use. However, if you are dragging, need to get through a long drive, or didn't get quite the eight hours last night, throw back one of these guys. 

They give a pretty instant boost of energy that sustains itself well. And like I said above, no crash. When I was in grad school I would often drive to Raleigh for the weekend to see my man and my family. I'd leave on Thursdays after a long day of classes and when I stopped for gas, I would grab one of these. Same thing with heading back to the mountains. They just get you going and get your brain a'thinkin. I love them and to anyone who may be weary of them, just give it a try. (the berry flavor kind of tastes like liquid Smarties)

My second favorite: Essie Nail Polish

This stuff. I feel like Essie and OPI are kind of each other's competition. If you are a nail polish guru you either love Essie or you love OPI - me? I love Essie. For me, it applies on the nail nicely, with better coverage, and the colors. Love them. It also seems to offer a bit more glossy finish than OPI when you don't have on a topcoat. 

For some reason, in the past couple weeks, I've accumulated five new nail polishes - four Essie and one OPI. The color above, Forever Young, in on my nails as we speak. I thought I'd support my Wolfpack this weekend via my nails. The other Essie colors I added to the collection are: Mink Muffs (taupe), Sew  Psyched (olive), and Jazz (bone). The OPI color: BYOBoy (it's not as bright pink in person) - this name is so cute, but not the sole reason I bought it. 

Also, Ulta always has a fabulous deal on Essie nail polish. It's buy two, get one free. They can be a bit pricey, but you get three for the price of two and it's definitely a quality product. 

After the weekend, I'm going to move on to Mink Muffs. And come Christmas time, I'll be sporting Sew Psyched fo'sho.

Then & Now

For old time's sake, one of the very first pictures of Chris and me back in 2005:

Please ignore: the weird face I'm making, my gross looking hair, and all. that. eyeliner. Please pay attention to: how cute we are.

For now time's sake, us before dinner one night during our honeymoon in St. Lucia: