Lucky Number 7

Today I have been married to my best friend for SEVEN years! That sounds like a long time. Well on our way to a decade. I don't think I've ever stuck with anything for that long. Except for maybe piano lessons. People talk about the "seven year itch," but besides rarely seeing each other (Ryan's nights are filled with either school, work, church, or a'capella practices) I still consider him my best friend and boy friend.

During these last 7 years we've...

• learned how to read each others mood and know what to do to cheer each other up
• lived in 2 creepy apartments and one amazing rental home (and I have a feeling we might be here for a long time)
• been through 3 pregnancies and blessed with 1 and 9/10ths children
• traveled to Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Hawaii, Mexico, France, Belgium, & Taiwan (next stop? I'm thinking Italy.)
• blown through 3 dogs, a tortoise, lots of fish, and 18 birds
• worked through some random jobs to support each other
• attended a combined total of 4 years of schooling... only about 3 more to go!
• figured out how to cook some decent meals and manage a checkbook without overdrawing
• grown closer as best friends and developed a deeper love and appreciation for each other

abcd

*some of our favorite spots at the Ghetti Center

Every year, for our anniversary, we explore a different city. We stay in a nice hotel, go out for dinner and go a little crazy (like order an appetizer AND fancy non-alcoholic drinks instead of water and trying to stick to the cheapest things on the menu - like I said, at least one of us has been a student for a while).

Last year... we did Paris. This year we went ALL the way to Los Angeles. We tried to do LA on anniversary #4, but ended up with the flu and spent the night taking turns hovering the toilet of the rad hotel room we stayed in. So this year, we lived it up. We stayed in a different rad hotel, The Luxe. It's hidden on acres of lush, green LA jungle and used to be an apartment building in the 20's. We went out for a night on the town in Westlake Village, ate dinner at Jerry's famous deli, got a kick out of our wacky lip injected waitress, window shopped hand-in-hand, waited in line at Diddy Riese for the best ice cream sandwich you'll ever get for $1.50, snuck our desserts into the old fashioned movie theatre and saw "Limitless," closed the black out curtains and got to sleep in til 11AM!, had an overpriced breakfast at our hotel at lunch time (banana blueberry pancakes mmmm), then spent the day exploring the Ghetti Center, were both relieved to admit that we were ready to go and hour earlier than planned (he was freezing and I am uncomfortably large) and spent the last hour of our LA anniversary driving around the mansions in the hills of Bel Air, picking out our dream home. It was a much needed get away. I almost forgot how much I love being alone with Ryan.

*balcony of our hotel room

Happy anniversary babe!

Here's to another 7 and hopefully another 2 kids & another college degree by then :)