first anniversary

wanna jump back to october? good, me too.

it's my favorite.

I was so grateful that we'd taken our big anniversary trip to new york city back at the beginning of the month.

our anniversary snuck up so fast, just like we knew it would.

miraculously, october 23rd was event-free at work,

which allowed us to frolic in the beautiful weather & enjoy each other ... + some friends ;)

we spent the morning at church,

& where I felt obligated to sloooowly walk down the aisle.

after church, we went home & ate lunch on our back patio,

where we listened to our reception playlist

(still too emotionally fragile to listen to the ceremony music, thank-you)

& made our first "23 Things I Love about You" lists,

which we hope to continue every year for, well, forever.

the lovely allison came over, & our plan was an afternoon in colonial williamsburg,

but the first stop was our reception site, where I mostly just wanted to ooo & ahh & reminisce.

we quickly realized that the women's club was occupied by another wedding,

deterring my hope of dreamily traipsing around the property on the husby's arm.

don't worry - we definitely thought about crashing the wedding & bestowing some wisdom as an old married couple of a whole year...

but in the end, allison convinced us to get back on the road.

[but not before snappin' some photos - preview of the reception post still to come!]

we made it to williamsburg & met up with logan.

oh, such glorious weather.

good thing we live in southern virginia where it can be 63 degress on december 1st, right??
[wrong. it should be snowing. I digress.]

we enjoyed a tasty dinner & headed home for some year old cake & honeymoon wine.

I've heard from so many people that their cake was delicious even after it had been frozen for a year,
so we were pretty excited to taste it.

the catch? I'm really not a cake person.

like, had the bite that jared shoved in my mouth at the wedding, & that was it.

but if I liked cake, I'd like this cake.

the good news was that I was on a diet for the entire month of october,

& this was my big binge. 

all that I was thinking was hello, sweet cake. welcome to my mouth, tasty wine.

it was nearly impossible to disappoint taste buds that had been eating veggies & grilled chicken for 23 days straight.

we were given our bottle of wine by the restaurant we frequented while on our honeymoon in st. croix,

& I all but demanded that we keep it for our first anniversary.

it was delicious. but again - easily impressed at that point...

[this just in: jared says that they were both delicious, forrealz. so it wasn't just the diet talking.]

it was a sweet day.

& a lovely memory.

I'm so glad we were able to spend the day free from responsibilities & to-do lists,

& I have jared to thank for that.

he knows when to slow me down & shower me with sweet love.

he's pretty perfect.

& by God's grace, our love just keeps getting bigger. & better. 

& love-ier.

xo, kelsey