Gettin' This Party Started

Our anniversary trip was filled with so many "this could only happen to us" moments so pull up a chair and prepare to laugh {at us} in this week's podcast!!

Click here to listen.

And now, some photos to go along with the stories!

Our 4th anniversary trip was to French Lick, Indiana, which is about 3 hours from our home, in the southern part of the state. Ryan had some trouble keeping a straight face about the photo shoot before we left home:

My life is never dull.

I'd packed our luggage and packed up the car before he got home from work on Thursday, so we could leave as soon as his day was over! We stopped for a quick dinner at Wendy's {thanks for the gift card, Mom and Dad!} and then began traveling. It really was a nice evening to drive, even if it was dark the whole way.

We stopped at a Starbucks about halfway through the trip for some caffeine, and that's where the whole story came about from the podcast where Ryan drove the wrong way through the parking lot!

We arrived at our hotel about 9:30 that night. We so wanted to stay at one of the two big fancy hotels in French Lick {more on those tomorrow}, but they were out of our budget. Several months ago, I had contacted the hotels to see if we could stay with a discount of some sort since I knew I would be covering the whole trip on the blog, but the people I emailed never wrote me back at all, which made me sad. {At least let me know you got the email and the answer is no!}

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO for those of you who may be contemplating a trip to French Lick, and like us, may not be able to afford the big hotels, allow me to suggest the Comfort Suites. They're just on the edge of town {too far to walk to attractions but definitely close enough to be right there for all the French Lick activities}.

When we arrived, we went upstairs to check out our room, and Ryan went back down to the car to get all our luggage, and that's when I noticed our room had a big crack in the door! Like I could see right into the hallway from inside my room - WITH a closed and locked door!

I wasn't entirely comfortable with that, so before we unpacked anything, Ryan went back to the desk and they moved us right across the hall, no questions asked, no hassle, and no problem! And the very next day, they had guys there working on the messed up door.

Our room was really comfortable - and because we were staying for three days, having a couch was really handy! It was nice to have a seating area!

All in all, we were very pleased with this hotel. Complimentary coffee at all times, a nice breakfast each morning, and comfy beds - OH! And good water pressure in the shower. {You know that's important!!}

And the featured TV show of the weekend for our anniversary??

Happy anniversary!!!!

I should also pause to show you our gifts we gave each other this year, which we actually exchanged early. I like to gift the traditional anniversary gifts. You know how every anniversary has a theme. So the first year was paper, and I gave him some subway art with words describing the activities of our first year together. The second year was cotton, so I made him some canvas art using a picture from one of our trips and a quote he loved. {It still hangs in our living room!} The third year was leather, and I gave him a leather desk caddy, which he turned into our "remote boat" for our living room.

Year four themes? Fruit and flowers. Killin' me. I read all kinds of suggestions on Pinterest, and none of them helped. Some suggested getting a fruit tree. Well, our anniversary is in December, which is not really tree planting weather. {Found out later he had a fruit tree once and really hated maintaining it, so I guess that would have been bad anyway.} A trip to an orchard or winery was another suggestion. Again...December. Plus, we don't drink. And while there are some guys who probably would like getting flowers, Ryan isn't one of them. And it's too cold to get a flowering bush or something for the landscaping.

So even though it felt like the most lame gift ever, I fell back on his deep love of fruit pies and had my mom make him a homemade black raspberry pie with a crust message:

 I think he liked it.

And even though he doesn't typically stick to the themed gifts, he did this year. Gave me a beautiful galvanized planter with "always thankful" inscribed on it. He said that remains his outlook on our relationship. {Swoon.}

I'll have to go back to Pinterest for planting ideas!!

Great start to the anniversary! :)