Where does the time go? Seriously. It’s been weeks since I’ve posted, yet most days I take pictures or start a post in my head, but it never makes it to the page. The past few weeks have been packed to the max. Yard work and house projects. Andy’s parents moved here from the lower 48 and that has been time consuming for everyone to say the least. Andy’s brother was our house guest for the past week also. There are babies to prepare for, and more family due to arrive in a couple weeks. In the middle of all that, a celebration was in order. A year ago, life looked a little something like this…

This last one is one of my favorites and blondie in the front is probably going to yell at me, but it’s to much fun to pass up. These ladies are simply put, the best ever.

The last year has been a whirlwind. A whirlwind I’ll always cherish though. Andy and I didn’t get the opportunity to go on a honeymoon so in the past few months we’ve been trying to plan for a special trip on our first anniversary. Plans A, B, and C all fell through. And plan D of at least getting away for a night didn’t even get called into play until hours before we were due to leave. We just decided to wing it. I planned the night before for Hayden to have a sleepover with her cousins and got up Sunday morning with Andy and we booked a hotel and made dinner reservations in Anchorage. We’d figure out the rest as we went. The weather didn’t look like it was really going to be in our favor so we figured we would at the very least enjoy some alone time to reminisce about the past year.

Someone was looking out for us though.

The hotel we booked has an unsolved glitch with their website that it allows you to book a room that is not available. Fantastic. So when we arrived to check in, our reservation was non existent. The hotel we attempted to stay at happens to be owned by one of Anchorage’s finest hotels, The Captain Cook. It’s beautiful and fancy, and really expensive. For our inconvenience, they set us up with a gorgeous ocean facing room at a rate $150 cheaper than what they normally charge. Score! We settled in, and soaked in the view.

The forecasted rain held off for us and we enjoyed sunny skies and ice cream for a stroll through downtown. We hit up a new spot for dinner. An Asian fusion restaurant, Ginger.

Andy tried out a new brew and I kicked back with a few virgin mojitos. Our lettuce wrap appetizer was AMAZING.

Andy ordered a king salmon fillet over coconut jasmine rice, with blood orange coleslaw and a fancy sauce that I can’t even remember how it’s pronounced. I went for the seared sea scallops over a 3 cheese pasta with truffle oil. We literally sat in silence for a good 10 minutes inhaling our food, it was that delicious.

We polished our plates clean, thankful we actually had a few blocks worth of walking to do in order to get back to our hotel. We needed the exercise in order to breathe. On our trek back we encountered Betty and Bill the horse, offering carriage rides through the city. Yes please!

Annoyingly all the other pictures I took of our horse drawn adventure didn’t save. Oh bother.

After our city stroll, we headed back to the hotel. On our way, we stopped and bought a bottle of wine to save for next years anniversary. We each wrote a note to each other saying what we hoped the next years worth of marriage would bring for us. The wine and notes got wrapped up and hopefully I can remember for next year, and we can start a new tradition.

Our evening was quiet and romantic and absolutely perfect.

We woke up to another day that had sunshine when forecasted to rain. We took advantage of our open schedule, grabbed some breakfast and coffees to go and walked down the next block to the bike rental trailer.

We picked out a blue beauty of a cruiser and set off for the coastal trail. The best part of a tandem bike is that this 7 month prego got to hang out on the back and do a whole lot of nothing but laugh and smile.

I couldn’t have asked for a better ending for our first anniversary celebration. If this is a glimpse into what all the years to come look like, I will truly feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Happy Anniversary to the wonderful man of my dreams.