Trip Randomness...and a Little Video

Before I bid a blog farewell to our first anniversary trip, I thought I'd show you a bit of the random sights of the weekend...things that didn't fit neatly into any of the posts I already shared!

Friday night after we went to the tree lighting, we walked over to Bazbeaux Pizza for some carryout! It is very yummy pizza and we enjoyed eating it in our room while we watched TV!!!

 We had the whole day Saturday to do whatever we wanted before we headed to the Gaither concert, so we set out with the camera! Posing with the monuments at Monument Circle...

 Yep. It's attached.

 Those lights go wayyyyyyyyyy up.

 We weren't the only couple out there with a tripod!

 You can actually go up in the tippy top of that monument - to an observation deck. It took me about 2 hours to work up my courage, but I did it!

 Banker's Life Fieldhouse {where the Gaither Concert was held}

 Lucas Oil Stadium

 Bekah panicking while waiting for the elevator to get out....

 And we had to go back at night for a photo shoot!

 My hansome husband...

 Kissing picture!!

 Shopping in the Colts Store...

 Shopping for Braeya. We didn't get it. We just wanted her to know we were thinking of her. HA!

 Starbucks and lights. Sigh of happiness.

 We had a gift card to P.F. Chang's, so we tried that...

 I don't even like egg drop soup - but this one was really good!

 And it's not a Shaffer road trip if we don't get stuck in traffic.

So that's it! That was our trip! So much fun! And I leave you with this:

Our First Anniversary

And yes. It was indeed over a week ago. :) But I'm just now getting to show you some of the fun we had! And oh my word - I have a story for you. Listen to THIS.

So we both took last Monday off work so we could celebrate our ACTUAL anniversary. I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't mind celebrating on another day - as long as there is ALSO a celebration on the real day. And you only get one first anniversary, so I wanted to do it right!

We woke up in our hotel and didn't have to check out until noon {YAY!!!} so we decided to just have a leisurely morning. We'd get ready slowly, have breakfast {aka leftover donuts} in bed...etc. So I went into the bathroom to get ready and Ryan made his way around the room, preparing coffee and getting out the donuts. He'd gone to Dunkin' Donuts the day before and gotten 6 donuts. We ate 4 {between us, not each} before we left for the game and put the last 2 back in the box for Monday.

The door to the bathroom opened and I saw a donut being held above the shower curtain. He said, "Hey, did you take a bite out of this donut and put it back?" Ummmmm why would an OCD girl do that? I said, "NO, did you?" He did not.

Oh yes. You're reading the story correctly. Some unidentified person was in our room at some point and ate a bite out of our donut and put it back.

As you might imagine, we were not entirely {at all} amused. Ryan took the box to the desk to report it and they offered him a a refund on donuts - IF he could produce his receipt. That was it! No replacement breakfast to our room, no other compensation, nothing. We had loved our hotel so much but suddenly - NOT so much. We immediately finished getting ready, gathered up all our stuff {because we were NOT leaving anything unattended again!} and checked out, really disappointed in the outcome of that hotel stay!

And as a plan B, we went to the bagel shop across the street for a new {delicious but much more expensive} breakfast.

After we finished up, we said goodbye to our downtown home for the weekend and headed for....

...a Christmas Tree Farm!! I'd found one between Indianapolis and home, so we went in search for our second ever live tree!

At this farm, they drive you back to the tree lots in a haywagon!!

We made it back to the lots and went in search of the perfect tree...

And we found her!!

We named her Ariel, and after we bought her, we went to Red Robin for a late lunch/early dinner. Red Robin was where we ate dinner on our first date!

Then we headed home to rest - and have a photo shoot! But you already saw the photo shoot part.

I wanted to do this, since we'd not been able to do this on our wedding day:

And then we opened our presents!

Ryan found a card with Carl and Ellie from Up on it. I cried. We ARE Carl and Ellie, so it's the perfect card.

And for my present, he gave me a beautiful canvas print with our names and wedding date on it - and a poem about spending our lives together. I LOVED it.

And I'd gotten him wall art too! A Subway Art print that recaps the activities of our first year.

We didn't save any of our wedding cake, so we bought cupcakes and ate those while we watched our wedding video!

Thank you, Love, for a wonderful anniversary!!

Fun Pictures

I've seen on Pinterest {of course...where else?} the idea of recreating wedding pictures on your anniversary.

So even though I'm pretty sure Ryan thought I was absolutely crazy, we did that last Monday!! Wanna see? {Click on any picture to see a bigger version.}

Ryan's mom took the 2012 version of this photo as we were making our way into our room at the resort last year following our tiny reception. So we had to recreate it at our hotel this past weekend! She wasn't there this time, so we had to do the tripod version...

 We stopped at a Christmas tree farm on our way home from our weekend getaway, so we used that backdrop to substitute the beach. No barefoot version this time!

 The 2012 version of this picture is one of our favorite wedding pics. We have it in a huge print on our bedroom wall. I think the updated one turned out pretty well, considering we were photographing blindly with a tripod!

 Trees are trees, right? Palm...evergreen...

 We never pass up the chance for a kissing picture...

 This one was Ryan's idea. CRACKED me up.

 Not QUITE the same backdrop....

 We were losing daylight by this time {on both days, come to think of it} so we were in a hurry!!

 Original, wedding, and anniversary editions....

I love these pictures so much. So glad we did this!!!

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday we took in the third day of our anniversary getaway...by attending the Colts game in Indianapolis! They played Tennessee, and while it wasn't the best game ever played in the history of football, it was fun to go...and fun to WIN!!!

* Monday was our first anniversary! Like the official, actual anniversary! We celebrated with a trip to the Christmas tree farm, where we picked out a new tree! That evening, we came home, watched our whole wedding video {do you know it's almost an hour long?} and ate cupcakes...and drank coffee, of course!!!

* Tuesday my eating and sleeping schedule was completely messed up from the long weekend...so by the time I came home from work, I felt pretty lousy. Ryan ran to the store for us so I could get a tiny bit of rest, but we are used to shopping together, so we {are you ready for this?} did our grocery shopping via FaceTime, with me at home and Ryan at the store. Apparently he got some really weird looks.

* Wednesday night, after we got home from the gym, we watched Christmas Vacation together. Or at least we started to. One of us fell asleep halfway through!! It was our only night we had at home to rest this week, so we made the most of it!

* Thursday was a LONG work day for me - but a fun one! The station hosted a BeadforLife party {more on this later} - from 11-7, so I spent the day with all my co-workers, meeting the people who came to shop! And it's possible I took a few ton of pictures! I didn't get home from work until 8:45 that night, but I had to start watching The Sound of Music Live right then!

* Friday night - yes a full WEEK into December, Ryan and I finally got to start decorating!! We dragged all the tubs out of the attic and spent the evening decorating just the first tree - the live one we bought on Monday, which is "our" tree. It was a fun night! We played Christmas music and enjoyed reminiscing about the ornaments we've collected since getting married. Fun!!

* Saturday, Ryan had to work, so my friend Amber came over to spend the day with me, and we worked hard on more trees! By the end of the day, with Amber's help and Ryan's help when he came home, we had seven trees up and all the Christmas tubs put away. Love it!! Want a sneak peek?

The Saturday Six

One.

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You know that I love KariAnne's decorating. But she had me CRACKING UP with this post. It's all true!! This really is how creating a Christmas project works. Check it out!

Two. 

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So I'm not REALLY a photographer, but I like to learn. And I really liked these suggestions of gifts for the photography lovers.  

Three.

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I was so sad to hear that Mark Lowry's mama passed away this week. This video is one of my faves of them singing. {She wrote this song.} 


Four.

Watched the Sound of Music Live this past Thursday. My verdict?? I thoroughly enjoyed it and hated that there were so many really ugly comments toward it. I thought it was amazing for a live TV event. I'd forgotten that the stage version was different from the movie and I prefer the movie version, but I thought the cast did a great job with it!

Five.

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So this week at work, the morning guys did a segment on their show about strange Christmas tree stories. A few people called in to share the odd living creatures that made it into their homes in live trees - including a praying mantis. The morning guys told me it's illegal to kill a praying mantis. WHAT?! How have I never known this?? So I spent some time researching that and found that it is actually NOT illegal. Snopes called it untrue!

Six.

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Incredible story that you should read...about a couple I went to college with. God has sustained them through everything you can imagine and a few things you probably can't.