6 Years Baby

May 2011

For our first wedding anniversary we visited "home" in California together. I got our rings engraved and we had a party where we ate the top of our cake. For our second he was deployed so we got all glammed up and spent it via webcam. Our third was spent in Salinas while we were staying with friends. He got me a leather purse and we went out to Monterey for dinner and a movie. For our fourth wedding anniversary Gabe came home for 3 weeks from Afghanistan and surprised me with a trip to San Francisco where we stayed at the Hyatt and went on a dinner cruise. A live band played our song on the boat for us. Last year for our fifth we went to our favorite little tea house in Carmel and spent the day strolling through the storybook town and relaxing on the beach.

This year, for our 6th wedding anniversary we stayed in and played with our daughter. We fed her her first "real" food, goofed around with her, watched TV... Then we went out and got a couple movies from Redbox, cinnamon buns from Safeway, and some chinese food and came back to the house. RJ was fussy so we spent a good amount of time listening to her crying and trying to soothe her. We finally put her to bed a little early because she was tired and then we ate, decorated her stocking while watching a movie, finished up some gift crafting/wrapping, and then cuddled while we watched the second movie. I fell asleep on him.

Can you guess which one is my favorite anniversary?


We are all but broke, we're tired because we're new parents and we're traveling, we're busy with holiday things, we have a fussier-than-normal baby because she's not used to all the stimulation and yet, it was by far the most fun, most fulfilling, most beautiful anniversary day we've had. She makes everything better. It was a true and deep joy to watch Gabe play with her because he gets so much true and deep joy out of doing it. We got to laugh at things that only we think are funny and talk about things that other people get bored of. We spent the day being a family, being us, and it was the best.

If someone had told me 5 years ago that I would be spending December 23, 2011 at home with a baby doing crafts and eating chinese food, I would have said... Well, actually, that would have sounded pretty awesome. Even before we really wanted to have kids, we wanted to have kids. Raychel has been on our hearts and in our minds forever. I have imagined holidays and everydays with mini-us countless times. It is a true pleasure to finally welcome her into our rhythms - and see her add her own beat.