Falling Slowly, Eyes that Know Me....

This past April Fool's day....two fools celebrated being married for 5 years. 

 I can't believe it's already been five years.  I  remember shortly after we married my Aunt Patsy, from Nashville Tennessee told me (insert a heavy southern accent) "honey, make sure you're married at least five years before you go having any babies...there's plenty of time for babies later, for now you just enjoy being young and in love".   At the time I remember thinking, yeah right, there's no way I'm waiting five years...and all of a sudden..fast forward 5 years and here we are. 

I look back at the past nine years of us being a couple and think....wow... we've been through so much....Many Happy Times....our beautiful wedding day, purchasing our first home, advances in careers and education, our beloved weenie dogs, wonderful celebrations, lots of traveling....as well as very hard times,  the loss of both of Justin's parents being the very hardest.  But through all of this we've certainly grown more and more as a couple, and each and every day I love and appreciate the man I married even more.  I think we're now at a point where we really treasure our time together, and we now know to cherish in the day and not wait for things to settle down ~
because that will never happen.

  I'm looking forward to the next five years.... We have so much ahead of us, Justin starting his career as a Doctor of Physical Therapy, me hopefully taking off with J.Starr Weddings... moving out of the condo and buying a big beautiful home and filling it with little babies. 

 I'm ready now, cheers to the next five years!!

For our five year, Justin told me he wanted to plan everything.  Me, being the event planner always gets a little nervous and letting someone else be in charge of the plans...but I did~because I trust Justin, in all honesty he's a better planner than me...shhhhh don't tell anyone.  He prepared an amazing anniversary celebration that went a little something like this.....

Flowers delivered to me at work....

Followed by a very romantic dinner at the Ritz Carlton ~complete with wine service and live music

After dinner, Justin said he had to "stop by" the Still Life Studios' office to pick up some gear for the next day. He told me to wait in the car and he'd be right back and we'd continue our date.  So after a few minutes of patiently waiting he tells me to come in because he needs me to help him carry some equipment...  as I enter Still Life I see that Justin had filled the showroom with candlelight and has our wedding c.d. playing on the overhead sound system.

In the middle of the room sat a sweetheart table, completely re-staged just like our wedding night with our linens, chair covers~same colors and all...and in the middle of the table sets a bottle of champagne along with our cake topper (recreated by the amazing team at "Piece of Cake"). 

It was so beautiful, and so thoughtful... and really meaningful.  We sat alone in the candlelight filled room and toasted to the next five years together. 

On the way home Justin tells me that the date is not over yet....

As we open the door to our condo I see roses with little notes attached to each one leading to the dining table. 

Justin had arranged for our neighbor to come in and set up this scene while we were at dinner.  There were nine roses total (one for each year we've been together), each with a favorite memory

hand tied to the stem.

Mostly just little funny random memories that only the two of us would laugh about.

Lastly on our dining room table displayed I found a love letter, a bottle of wine (this was the last bottle out of the series that Trevor had purchased for us as a wedding gift) and two "little blue tiffany bags".   Inside the two little blue bags were two little blue boxes containing the matching bracelet and earrings to the necklace that he had
 given me to for Christmas.

Just the most amazing date ever...I'm a lucky girl.

  Thank you to my handsome husband, my best buddy, my love.  You make my world beautiful.