Two years down, a lifetime to go.

Happy Anniversary to us!

(we do take a good looking picture #3)

I can’t believe we’ve been married 2 years already. It seems like just yesterday I was meeting him at the end of that aisle all dressed up – me in my pretty white dress and him in his tux.



Steven and I were able to take some time out of this rapidly moving year to focus on our anniversary celebration. Since our anniversary was a Monday we took advantage of the weekend and went down to Harrisonburg on Saturday after Steve’s game. We got to the hotel mid-afternoon and got unpacked(ish) and relaxed a bit and tried to figure out what we’d be doing for the rest of the night. Turns out there was something going on at the college and the town was (apparently) shutting down after dinner time. That meant no wandering around town after dinner. Bummer. We found a nice restaurant to eat at (Kyoto Japanese Steakhouse) and got ready to head to dinner (#1 – go on a date with my husband). We got there and were seated right away which was nice. The table was nearly full and another couple was sat right after us and we were full. We ordered drinks and food. We had small conversation with the couple next to us but they weren’t very chatty. And the group that made up the rest of the table was there with the group at the table next to us so they talked amongst themselves. Not a bad thing, but it did make for some awkward times. Either way Steve and I had a wonderful time. The Hibachi chef came and started our meal. Another disappointment. He seemed to rush through the cooking which didn’t lead to a very big (or fun) show that restaurants like these put on. It was still good and fun, but it could have been better. Either that or we’ve been spoiled by the hibachi places up here that put on fantastic shows! Our food was FANTASTIC! And there was so much of it. Steve cleaned his plate and while I didn’t manage to clean mine I did manage to eat all the “good stuff” haha. I left behind some rice and veggies, but my seafood and steak were devoured! We didn’t stick around very long after we had finished and paid even though we weren’t really in a hurry.

my yummy dinner. and drink. before I ate all the good stuff.

After dinner we headed to a shopping center across the street from our hotel. We needed to walk off dinner! We wandered around Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We stopped and looked at things we liked for the house. I took a couple pictures because we weren’t there to really buy anything and I didn’t really feel like having to deal with getting them home with all the rest of the stuff in the car. After BBB we headed next door to Barnes & Nobel. First stop, Starbucks. We got our coffees and wandered through the bookstore. The both of us can kill some serious time in a book store. We both ended up with 2 books and decided that was probably enough (heck we are trying to pack things up and not actually bring new clutter into the house!).After our time in B&N we headed back to the room. We were still pretty full so we were mostly bumps on a log. Steve tooled around on the computer figuring out our trip up Skyline Drive (and probably doing some baseball work knowing my husband). I plopped down in a chair and read through one of my new books. We mostly just relaxed for the rest of the night which was nice because even though we hadn’t done much we’d had a busy day.

Sunday we got up early and got ready for the day. We wanted to get a fairly early start so we could enjoy Skyline but also so we could make it to our house before we headed home while still getting home at a pretty decent time.

We decided to skip breakfast in the hotel and we headed for Bob Evans. YUMMY! We had a really awesome breakfast. Well I did, but Steve’s looked gross to me so I wouldn’t call his yummy although he enjoyed it. I enjoyed some stuffed French toast. It wasn’t exactly what I was thinking (I was thinking more IHOP version) but they were still really good. After a nice breakfast we got on the road.

We got on Skyline Drive (#61) in Elkton. Steven told me before we left that we were by no means stopping at every single overlook because it would take us forever to get off if we did that. I was perfectly ok with that because seriously how many different views of the same valley/mountain/scenery do you need to see? So we clearly stopped at the first one we came to. Then the next. Then the next. And so on and so forth. Did I mention I was not the driver? Yeah so he was stopping left and right it was so funny. (yeah baby I just made fun of you on the internet. I love you!). We did finally slow down on the stopping and sometimes we’d “drive though” but not actually get out of the car. I didn’t take pictures of each and every overlook but there were some that I took lots of pictures at.

and this is what I looked like a good portion of the day ha!

We stopped at the Harry F. Byrd Sr. Visitors Center to ask a few questions, bathroom, and look around (and I shopped.) The visitors center was nice and it even had an exhibit so we walked through that. It wasn’t huge so it didn’t take long but it was pretty neat. And, like I said, I did a little shopping. I even changed my clothes in the bathroom because we’d decided we were going on a hike to Dark Hallow Falls (which was not previously planned) so I was not dressed for a hike so I had to change so I would be more appropriately dressed. After a little bit of time at the visitors center we headed on our way to the Falls for our hike.

We got to Dark Hallow Falls and got a bag together (water, camera, chapstick. Pretty much it. I really wish I had thought ahead and brought my camelback though but my little bag did just fine.) We were informed that this hike would take about 30 minutes down to the falls and about an hour back. What. Double the time back? That did not sound right. The lady must have been mistaken. So ok, here we go. Neither one of us are completely out of shape but we aren’t the most athletic (or graceful) people in the planet but we’re determined to hike our way down the mountain to see this waterfall. We got about halfway through the hike and we realized why it would take so long to get back up. We were hiking DOWN the mountain. As in almost all the freaking way down it which meant we had to hike all the freaking way back up it. What had we gotten ourselves into? Well, no turning back now we might as well go on. So we did. And it was SO worth it.

The waterfall was so pretty and these pictures really don’t do it justice. We spent some time resting up at the bottom and really just enjoying the scenery. Then it was time to head back to the car. OMG. I don’t wanna go. My legs. They were crying already. But we made it. We stopped for photo ops (ie. breaks) along the way and I stopped a few times to grab a drink of ice cold stream water. Yeah ok you can think it’s gross all you want but it was SO good! It’s up there with drinking from a garden hose as my most favorite place to get water. Steve was pretty much against it until I made him do it. I wouldn’t say it is his new favorite way to get water, but he didn’t hate it. We successfully made it through the hike and did not die (YAY!). We enjoyed it, although next time I would like to be more prepared but it was really fun and I’m so glad we did it. We were going to do another small hike afterwards but it was like RIGHT after this hike and we decided not to push our luck.

We continued on down the drive and stopped at a few more overlooks and did a couple more drive thrus. Our last stop was at the Rock Tunnel (Mary’s Rock Tunnel I think but don’t quote me on that one). It was really cool. I took a ton of pictures but these stupid ass orange cones were in my way. I was really, really annoyed by that because I couldn’t get a good picture of this tunnel because of those cones. Either way it was cool to see. And the view there was really nice.

see those stupid cones. but it is cool right?

After that we decided it was time to head home so we got off at the Thornton Gap exit. We could have continued on and gotten off in Front Royal, but we were afraid that would take us too long and we were hungry and we wanted to go see our house so getting off was the best thing for us. Maybe next time we’ll get on at Thornton Gap and get off at Front Royal.

We made it to the house in time for Steve to talk to the builder salesman forever much to my disapproval. Then we walked down to the house to check out the progress but I’ll post about that in a separate post. After we walked through we headed home. First to my parents to pick up Buddy and then home to relax for the rest of the night.

Monday, our actual anniversary, I had to work even thought I wasn’t planning on it. But so did Steve so it’s not like we’d missed out on a day together. After work we went out to dinner (#1 – another day. Go us!) We weren’t doing anything super fancy for dinner we just were not eating dinner with his parents on our anniversary. We decided just to drive around, towards the restaurants, until we figured out what we wanted to eat. We finally settled on Mimi’s Café and it was SO good. They even had a special (you know one of those 3 courses for a fixed price deals). We normally don’t get those – well, I sometimes do but Steve usually has a hard time with them not offering what he’s in the mood for – but this time we both got something off the menu. And we only decided that after we’d already ordered an appetizer. Oh well. It was a lot of food but it was SO good and so worth it. Plus it was nice to have dinner with my husband, just the two of us.

Overall we had a wonderful anniversary. I’m glad we took the time to just get away and do something special for us.

Happy Anniversary sweetheart. I love you to the moon and back.