Our Anniversary + The Edel Gathering

Things have been kind of hard since Claire's hiking accident. One dad with a pretty badly sprained ankle + one quite pregnant mom + three very small children + emotional trauma = not exactly a recipe for success. But, today, let's focus on two bright spots over the last month.

First, our seventh anniversary! Adam and I had the best time celebrating on a really great date night. Seattle has an impressive food scene and we spent a while researching new restaurants we wanted to try. We finally narrowed it down to Bateau, Renee Erickson's new steakhouse in Capitol Hill. 

The beef is all grass-fed from local farms and butchered in house. They want to use the whole cow, so they sell some less-common cuts of steak and they have limited availability of everything. All the cuts are written on big chalkboards and the waiters cross things off as customers order them.

We started off with salads, then I ordered the ranch cut with mashed potatoes and Adam ordered the Denver with fries and garlic aioli. We had just enough room left to share a bread pudding for dessert. Everything was delicious and very reasonably priced. 

We had such a fun time reminiscing about our honeymoon at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico (we would go back in a second!) and realized I've been expecting for more than half of our anniversaries thus far.



After dinner, we had planned to go up to the Columbia Tower Observatory (the tallest building in Seattle) to watch the sunset, but, alas, the Sea Fair parade meant there was no parking to be found downtown. So, we went to go see The Big Sick instead. It was such a different and delightful romantic comedy. We'd highly recommend it.

The next day we had our traditional anniversary family feast of fajitas and derby pie, the food we served at our wedding reception. I promise our children were more enthused than they appear in this photo!



The following weekend, my dear friend, Libby, and I flew to Austin to attend the Edel Gathering. I am so thankful that Adam's ankle had healed enough by then for me to go, because I had been looking forward to this for many months. We arrived on Friday evening, just in time for the announcement of the crazy shoe contest winners at the opening cocktail party. We thought the Frito pie bar was such a fun and delicious idea.

We had planned to attend the Soul Core session on Saturday morning, but when we arrived the room was already full and we weren't quite gung-ho enough to join the crowd working out in the hallway. Libby actually did head to the gym, while I chose to read by the pool instead. We showered, walked over to the flagship Whole Foods for lunch, and then it was conference time!

We heard three beautiful talks, indulged in some shopping from all the fabulous vendors, went to the Vigil Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral, and made some new friends during the closing dinner and dance party. The face painting booth was such a great addition to the evening. One of my friends from high school, Katie, was there too and it was so great to catch up with her.

Our flight didn't leave until 7:30 on Sunday night, so we had almost the whole day to explore Austin. We read by the pool until checkout time, then walked around South Congress, where I purchased my first pair of Kendra Scott earrings and we had tacos at Guero's. We finished off the afternoon with pedicures and Amy's Ice Cream. It was such a relaxing and rejuvenating weekend away!



We took 2016 off because Betsy was a little baby the whole time, but Adam and I really like to give each other a couple days of kid-free time a year. I've been to the Edel Gathering twice and to Portland with my sister. Adam's been camping twice and visited friends in Pittsburgh, while also accompanying my brother on a scholarship interview. When family members offer to watch the girls so we can both sneak away, we are all over it. They are awesome and either my parents or my sister have kept them overnight several times. The last time was our fifth anniversary, but my parents are coming to give us 24-ish hours off next month. To say we are very, very excited would be definitely be an understatement.

Anniversary Getaway

We celebrated our five year anniversary last Friday! We like to celebrate as a family, because it is the birthday of our family after all. So we had our traditional dinner of fajitas and derby pie, the food served at our wedding reception. 

Allison brought us that table runner from a mission trip to Ecuador - it makes our fiesta so much more festive. I feel compelled to tell you that's Pomegranate San Pellegrino filled to the brim of our wine glasses, not an alcoholic beverage!



We took our traditional anniversary family photo and then looked at our wedding album with Claire. She was obsessed with who was babysitting her while we were getting married. I don't think she can fathom a time when she didn't exist!



The next morning, we left the girls with my sister and set out for an overnight getaway. First up was hiking Rattlesnake Ledge. It was a totally doable two miles up to the top, where we were rewarded with some pretty amazing views.











Back at the bottom, we had a picnic lunch at Rattlesnake Lake.



From there, we drove to our hotel, the Salish Lodge atop Snoqualmie Falls. We actually stayed there for our second anniversary right after we moved to Seattle, with four-month-old Claire tagging along. As cute as she was back then, it was so great to return just the two of us!



We showered and read for a while before heading down to the restaurant for a really delicious dinner. Afterwards, we rented the new Avengers movie, slept in until 9:30 (!!!), ordered a room service breakfast, went to a noon Mass sans kids, and ran a couple errands before going home because apparently we're boring adults now. 



I'm so glad we got to leave the girls in Allie's extremely capable hands and sneak off for such a fun, relaxing weekend.

P.S. We've tried to follow the traditional anniversary gifts and year five is wood. We just ordered this sideboard for our family altar, so our August project will be getting it stained and sealed.

Five Years

5 years

4 minors completed

  

3 homes

2 little girls

1 baby on the way!

Four Years

Every year on our anniversary, we have fajitas and derby pie, the meal we served at our wedding reception. And this year was no exception...

For our first anniversary, we spent a weekend at a quiet resort in West Virginia. The traditional gift is paper, so we gifted ourselves a family bible. And the next day we found out we were expecting Claire!

For our second anniversary, we stayed the night at the fancy hotel overlooking Snoqualmie Falls. We had just moved to Seattle a few weeks previous and four-month old Claire tagged along. The traditional gift is cotton, so we splurged on a nice set of sheets. 

For our third anniversary, my parents watched Claire while we spent a night at hotel and had dinner at the Space Needle. The traditional gift is leather, so we gave each other monogrammed leather key chains.

And for our fourth anniversary, my parents were in town for the weekend before flying back to Shanghai, so they watched the girls while we had dinner at Trellis, a delicious French restaurant in our little suburb. The traditional gift is fruit or flowers, so we ordered two tiny botanical paintings from Emily Jeffords that should arrive later this week! 

It was definitely our most low-key celebration to date, but we're planning to do it up in style for year five. Hopefully a non-visiting-relatives vacation that's longer than 1.5 days long?

We have a great, great life. Adam has a job that he enjoys, that pays well, and that's very family-friendly. I get to stay at home with our two sweet little girls. We live in a cute house in a cute town in one of the most beautiful areas of one of the safest, most prosperous countries in the world. We are amazingly blessed.

But, man, life is not easy. That was demonstrated as we tried to prepare and eat a fancier than normal meal on a weeknight, accompanied by lots and lots of shrieking from the baby and whining from the toddler. And it was demonstrated again as we were putting a crazy-hyper toddler and a cranky teething baby to bed before our dinner date. A teething baby who, after receiving a dose of tylenol, threw up her entire dinner, ten minutes before our reservation...

I think it's finally been hit over my head enough that our vocations are supposed to be hard. Like really, really hard. Can you imagine how much work it is to be the average parish priest? Responsible for hundreds of families and a school, mostly likely all by yourself. Or what it would be like to say goodbye to your family and become a cloistered nun?

Our purpose here on earth is to know, love, and serve God. Turns out that serving part is quite a lot of work. And involves a good deal of vomit, at least in my case!

Push Presents

This is Adam's last week of paternity leave. Well, unless we win the lottery in the next few days. We have loved having him at home!

Over the last month, he was in charge of all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, groceries, and toddler entertainment. I just got to feed Maggie (pretty much constantly, it feels like sometimes), catch up on sleep, and try to squeeze in play time with Claire whenever possible.

I don't know about you, but my husband encouraging me to sleep in or remembering that we need diapers and running to Target for more, is pretty much the definition of romance. Every once in a while though, Adam does something totally above and beyond. With each of our daughters, he's surprised me with a "thanks for having our baby" gift. I think they're sometimes called push presents, but I guess in my case it'd be more like a "major abdominal surgery" present.

When Claire arrived, he gave me a Kindle. It's been so handy during the many hours spent feeding a newborn, since it's much easier to read without having to actually hold the book open, you know?

This time, he gave me a pretty necklace from The Vintage Pearl. In all honesty, I did send him a not-so-subtle email with a link to my favorite one, way back when we first found out we were expecting. But I was definitely hinting at a birthday or Christmas gift. Anything extra never crossed my mind.

He actually gave it to me the day we found out Maggie was (wrongly!) diagnosed with IUGR, a day which Claire also happened to have a stomach bug and a day which I certainly could have used a mood booster. It certainly fit the bill.

Anniversary Festivities

As I mentioned earlier, we celebrated our third wedding anniversary last week! On Sunday, my parents watched Claire while Adam and I went out for dinner. Adam's company has this discount card that offers buy-one-get-one deals at lots of restaurants in the Seattle area, including the revolving restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. 

The food was delicious and the views were amazing. We had an 8:00 reservation, which was perfect timing because we got to see the sunset!

On Wednesday, our actual anniversary, we continued our tradition of recreating the food served at our wedding reception. I really like the idea of making our anniversary a family celebration because, after all, it is the birthday of our family!



So, we had fajitas. Allie gave us the festive table runner from her recent mission trip to Ecuador.



And derby pie for dessert. Claire gave the pie two big thumbs up!



 After dinner, we exchanged gifts. Every year so far, we've followed the traditional guidelines while trying to stick to a $50 budget. For first anniversaries, the traditional gift is paper, so we picked out a family bible. For second anniversaries, the traditional gift is cotton, so we got a nice set of sheets for our bed. This year the traditional gift is leather, so we ordered personalized leather key chains from this Etsy seller. We each selected a bible verse for the other's key chain.



Next year the traditional gift is flowers or fruit, so I'm not sure where we'll go with that? We also have a little tradition of taking an anniversary photo each year. Here's year one:



Year two:



And year three:

Fun fact: I am pregnant in two-thirds of those photos! A track record we are very thankful for.

P.S. Here's how we celebrated our first and second anniversaries!

How We Got Married in College

Today is our third anniversary! To celebrate, I thought I would write about how we got married in college. Not why we got married in college. That answer is pretty easy - we couldn't wait any longer! But how were we able to do it? 

Tuition Scholarships. We didn't talk about marriage in our high school dating years, but we knew that going to the same college was an important step in that direction. We looked at schools where we could both earn full tuition scholarships and Pitt, the highest-ranked academically, was the clear winner.

Student Loans. I took out the standard federal student loans to cover my room and board each year.

Room and Board Scholarship. Adam was all set to take out student loans as well, but then he interviewed for and was awarded a special scholarship that also covered room and board. 

High School Jobs. We didn't have to work on campus our freshman years, thanks to savings we accumulated from high school part-time jobs. I worked at Sonic and Adam was a physics tutor. We were definitely glad not to have worked our first year of college, because it gave us time to adjust to everything and make friends.

On-Campus Jobs. Starting in our sophomore years, though, we each worked about fifteen hours a week on campus. I worked in the computer lab and Adam did research with a professor. We also helped out as undergrad teaching assistants at various points.

Summer Internships. We worked full-time every summer. Right after graduating from high school, we both worked at a day camp. During the following summers, I interned at non-profits and Adam did math research. 

Real Part-Time Jobs. For the year between my graduation and Adam's graduation, I worked about thirty hours a week as a nanny and an SAT tutor. Both of these positions required a car, so we used a big chunk of our savings to buy one, along with taking out a car loan.

Pell Grant. It was really, really nice to work a bit less than full-time while expecting Claire. I was able to do that because Adam received a Pell Grant from the university for his last year of school.

Departmental Scholarships. In my junior and senior years, I won two scholarships from the business school, mostly because no one else applied. Adam also received awards from the math and physics departments that came with cash gifts.

Outside Scholarships. We were both awarded the Robert C. Byrd scholarship from the State of Texas, which basically covered the cost of our textbooks each semester. 

Parental Support.  Before we were married, our parents paid for our health insurance, cell phones, and flights home. Every summer until we were married, we had internships back in Houston. So, for a third of the year, our parents still provided food, lodging, and the third family car to commute to work. That allowed us to save almost all of our income each summer, which went to studying abroad, wedding expenses, and eventually a car down payment. While we did get a cell phone plan and provide for our own travel expenses after getting married, thanks to the new health care law we were actually able to stay on their health insurance. However, Adam had to buy student health insurance from Pitt for his last semester, so Claire would be covered from her birth until his full-time job started.

We left Pittsburgh with two bachelor's degrees and lots of good friends. Of course, we also left with student loans and a car loan, debt we would have incurred no matter when we got married. I would say the two years of marriage and awfully cute baby more than make up for it though!  

Hotel Stay!

We just dropped my mom and brother off at the airport. They were such a great help over the past two weeks and we are all sad to see them go. I'll actually have to start doing laundry again! 

While they were in town, they offered to watch Claire overnight as an early anniversary gift. We took them up on it last Saturday night and, guys, it was amazing! I was a little sad leaving Claire for the night for the first time since we brought her home for the hospital. {Adam had already been apart from her once, when Claire and I spent a night in Victoria.} But it was so much fun to be out just the two of us for eighteen whole hours. 

We went to the vigil Mass on Saturday evening, had dinner at a fun gourmet pizza place, and stayed at a hotel in downtown Bellevue. We both agree that the best part was sleeping in until nine the next morning!

Unsolicited Advice

I am in no way whatsoever in a position to give marriage advice, but here are two new things that have been working well for us lately:

{amy jo photography}

- Sharing a holy hour. This summer, one of our favorite priests gave a homily about how married couples should really try to make it work for each spouse to get an hour of adoration to themselves each week. Well, we have found that sharing a holy hour works better for us in our current stage of life {new parents, new job, new city, etc} so every Sunday night one of us gets to spend some time with the man upstairs while the other holds down the fort. And the next week, we switch!

- Weekly budget meetings. When we were first married, we used Mint.com for our budgeting purposes, but we quickly found that it didn't meet our needs exactly, so we came up with a way more complicated system. Let's just say that system basically flew out the window when a baby arrived on the scene, so we turned to Mint.com once again. It's still not perfect, but they've added a few new things {like the ability to split your transactions into different categories} so we're pretty happy with it. Since I do most of the shopping and am better at remembering when bills are due, I am in charge of the budget and sit down once a week with our receipts to make sure everything is categorized correctly. But, Adam is better at actually sticking to the budget, so we spend a few minutes together every Wednesday looking over our spending and talking about an upcoming events that need to be budgeted for.

Anniversary Festivities

On our actual anniversary, last Tuesday, I recreated our wedding menu for dinner - fajitas and derby pie. 

In honor of the occasion, Claire sat at the table for the first time. {Reality check: she was a happy camper for about ten minutes and then freaked out. We resumed our meal an hour later after we put her to bed.}

Over the weekend, we splurged on a night at a fancy hotel, the Salish Lodge, which is atop Snoqualmie Falls about an hour outside of the city. We figured, since Claire's still pretty portable, this was our last chance for an anniversary getaway for a while. And we got a great deal because they're building a new hydro-power plant right now! 

We spent the afternoon checking out the falls and going for a hike.

Claire got to hang out facing forward in the Baby Bjorn for the first time. She loved it! And, somehow, the girl who hates naps managed to fall asleep in the most uncomfortable position possible? 

We had dinner at a cute little diner and watched The Five Year Engagement.

The next morning, Claire gave us the best anniversary gift ever and slept in until 8:30. What?! We ordered room service for breakfast and definitely enjoyed our rare baby-free meal.

Here we are on our first anniversary. True story: we found out we were expecting the very next day! 

And here we are one year later. A little older, and hopefully a little wiser.

P.S. The traditional second anniversary gift is cotton, so we gifted each other a nice set of sheets. I am now a believer in thread count!